Are NYC Candidates Finally Done 'Scaring White People'?

Alex Pareene hopes that's what Bill de Blasio's decisive win means
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 7, 2013 1:11 PM CST
Are NYC Candidates Finally Done 'Scaring White People'?
New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio introduces his transition team Wednesday.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

One surefire way to win an election in New York City: Scare the white population, which is almost big enough on its own to score a victory. Rudy Giuliani was the best at this, and it's also how Michael Bloomberg won, Alex Pareene writes at Salon. But with Bill de Blasio's decisive mayoral victory, Pareene thinks the tactic might finally be on its way out. De Blasio's opponent, Joe Lhota, basically ran on the idea "that a vote for de Blasio is a vote for race riots," and that by limiting stop-and-frisk, de Blasio would return the city to "the bad old days." The idea being: "Once we stop stopping them [minorities] ... they’ll return to causing trouble."

Those "bad old days," by the way, are traditionally associated with the city's only black mayor, David Dinkins ... even though the crime decline began while Dinkins was in office. "Decades after his defeat, [Dinkins'] name lives on in attack ads and campaign speeches, all arguing that New Yorkers can’t make the mistake of allowing them to be in charge again." But this year, "no one cared" about Lhota's fear-mongering message; he lost, and though de Blasio won only a 52% majority of the white vote, that's a massive improvement over how much Democrat Bill Thompson won in 2009. "It’s ... heartening that New York’s whites have mostly rejected the tribal appeals." Click for Pareene's full column. (More Bill de Blasio stories.)

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