Sadly, not in the Hugh Hewitt or Red State definition of the idea. From Allahpundit at Hot Air, “Fun new issue in NYC mayoral race: Is the Democratic nominee an actual communist?” We already mentioned Bill de Blasio’s “youthful indiscretions” yesterday; the New York Times writes that looking back on them today, de Blasio’s pretty cool with his radical chic past:
Bill de Blasio, then 26, went to Nicaragua to help distribute food and medicine in the middle of a war between left and right. But he returned with something else entirely: a vision of the possibilities of an unfettered leftist government…
Mr. de Blasio became an ardent supporter of the Nicaraguan revolutionaries. He helped raise funds for the Sandinistas in New York and subscribed to the party’s newspaper, Barricada, or Barricade. When he was asked at a meeting in 1990 about his goals for society, he said he was an advocate of “democratic socialism.”…
In a recent interview, Mr. de Blasio said his views then — and now — represented a mix of admiration for European social democratic movements, Mr. Roosevelt’s New Deal and liberation theology.
Mr. de Blasio remained supportive of the Sandinistas, often referred to by their acronym, F.S.L.N., even after they lost power. “People who had shallow party sympathies with the F.S.L.N. pretty much dropped everything when they lost,” said Jane Guskin, a fellow activist in the solidarity group. “Bill wasn’t like that.”
To which Allahpundit adds:
If New York needs to re-learn a lesson about the glories of having a full-fledged liberal as mayor, it’s fitting that they choose a guy who didn’t learn his own historical lessons. And by the way, just for fun: Obama chose the very day that the Times’s story about de Blasio’s romance with the Sandinistas dropped to endorse him for mayor. They’re meeting tonight in NYC since O’s in town for the UN General Assembly. Exit question: de Blasio/Warren 2020?
During the Woodrow Wilson era, H.L. Mencken quipped, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” (And how.) Or as Ed Koch famously said when asked if he would run for mayorship of New York ever again, after losing to David Dinkins 1989, “No. The people have spoken — and now they must be punished.”
And as with the Dinkins years, they will be once again.
Related: “New York City’s Next Mayor: A Stealth Socialist Who Loved Sandinista Nicaragua and Castro’s Cuba,” from Ron Radosh.
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