On Thursday evening, New York City’s Democratic mayoral candidates appeared for their first televised debate. And while the proceedings weren’t particularly enlightening, they did give Henry Grabar and Jordan Weissmann an opportunity to reflect on the state of the race.
Jordan Weissmann: So Henry, I come before you as a slightly humbled pundit.
Henry Grabar: Recant, recant!
Weissmann: Indeed, I must. Partially, anyway.
A few months back, I told you that I was Yang-curious—that, despite finding him to be a gimmicky nuisance during the presidential race, I generally liked what he was bringing to the table as a mayoral candidate. His proposals to provide a basic income for New York’s poorest and create a municipal public bank seemed like a revival of the long-faded notion that large urban centers could function as their own social democratic city-states. And given that the whole race sort of seemed to be a clown car full of weird, dull, or simply out-of-the-mainstream candidates, I figured there would be no harm in picking the most compelling clown, even if he lacked obvious, basic qualifications like government experience.