basquebromance
Diamond Member
- Nov 26, 2015
- 109,396
- 27,066
- 2,220
- Banned
- #1
he's gonna be the 1st (Republican) black president!
www.thebulwark.com
excerpts:
“He created his own lane,” says Kandy Stroud, a longtime Democratic party insider and a native New Yorker, who believes Adams’s key to success was his decision to eschew the politics of New York’s current mayor, Bill de Blasio, an unapologetic progressive. “Adams appealed to a more down-the-middle Democrat. He didn’t need Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It just goes to show there is an opportunity for a moderate Democrat to win. Then again, Eric Adams has star quality. He’s his own dude. He’s cool.”
As a teenager, Adams joined a gang, the 7-Crowns. At fifteen, he agreed to run errands for a dancer and prostitute named Micki when she got injured. But she refused to pay him, so Adams, with the help of his brother, stole her television and a money order. Micki reported the crime to the police, and the brothers were arrested for criminal trespassing. While in custody, the Adams boys were severely beaten by police, an attack that ended only when a black officer intervened.
The assault left a lasting impression on Adams. “My brother and I were . . . abused together,” he later told NPR, “and the police officers who arrested us did not hit us all over our body. They just kicked us in our groin repeatedly. . . . [M]y brother left there hating cops. . . . I left there with the belief that it was behind me.” Adams graduated Bayside High School in 1978, “but as life went on, I realized that every time I saw a police vehicle, every time I watched a police show, every time I heard a siren, I relived that [assault]. . . . I understood that there was a demon inside me. And the only way I can get it out is for me to go in, and going in meant becoming a police officer.”
To pursue that goal, Adams entered the New York Police Academy from which he graduated in 1984 as the top student in his class. A tenure at the New York Transit Police culminated with a transfer to the New York City Police Department where he enjoyed assignments in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, Clinton Hill, and Fort Green and Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Along the way, he earned an associate in arts from New York City College of Technology, a bachelor of arts from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a master of public administration from Marist College. In 1995, in reaction to the election of Rudolph Giuliani as mayor, Adams cofounded 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, an advocacy group meant to address the relationship between the NYPD and the African-American community. He also became active in the Grand Council of Guardians, an organization of African-American law enforcement officers throughout the state.
Then, in 2006, when Adams went on television and criticized Mayor Michael Bloomberg, he was investigated by the NYPD. No doubt, opinion of him was affected by his continued involvement in 100 Blacks, which one publication described as “an organization that called out racist policing by the NYPD during the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations.” That same year, Adams retired after 22 years on the police force with a final rank of captain
In the primary—which for the first time in a New York mayoral race used a ranked-choice system, allowing voters to list up to five of their top choices for office—Adams received 50.4 percent of the vote to Garcia’s 49.6 percent. The difference was a mere 7,000 votes. Had Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Garcia instead of Wiley, Adams may not have won the primary.
But, with a victory behind him, Adams proceeded on to the November general election to face a Republican opponent who has been a prominent personality in New York politics for four decades: Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels and a radio host. Sliwa never mounted a viable campaign to challenge Adams. It was, therefore, not surprising when Adams won in a 40-point landslide. The impressive victory, by a Democrat who rejected the clarion call of the progressive movement to “Defund the Police,” caught the attention of Democrats around the country who understand what it takes to win in areas outside the major metropolitan liberal strongholds. “A lot of time crime overtrumps what party you’re from,” says former Democratic Congressman Ronnie Shows of Mississippi. “Eric Adams is a Blue Dog moderate. I think that’s where most voters are. People don’t want to defund the police. They want retraining and more money put into recruiting good people.”
Is Eric Adams the Democrats’ Next National Star?
Spurned by prominent progressives during the campaign, the incoming mayor of New York City is a centrist who could have national appeal.
www.thebulwark.com
excerpts:
“He created his own lane,” says Kandy Stroud, a longtime Democratic party insider and a native New Yorker, who believes Adams’s key to success was his decision to eschew the politics of New York’s current mayor, Bill de Blasio, an unapologetic progressive. “Adams appealed to a more down-the-middle Democrat. He didn’t need Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It just goes to show there is an opportunity for a moderate Democrat to win. Then again, Eric Adams has star quality. He’s his own dude. He’s cool.”
As a teenager, Adams joined a gang, the 7-Crowns. At fifteen, he agreed to run errands for a dancer and prostitute named Micki when she got injured. But she refused to pay him, so Adams, with the help of his brother, stole her television and a money order. Micki reported the crime to the police, and the brothers were arrested for criminal trespassing. While in custody, the Adams boys were severely beaten by police, an attack that ended only when a black officer intervened.
The assault left a lasting impression on Adams. “My brother and I were . . . abused together,” he later told NPR, “and the police officers who arrested us did not hit us all over our body. They just kicked us in our groin repeatedly. . . . [M]y brother left there hating cops. . . . I left there with the belief that it was behind me.” Adams graduated Bayside High School in 1978, “but as life went on, I realized that every time I saw a police vehicle, every time I watched a police show, every time I heard a siren, I relived that [assault]. . . . I understood that there was a demon inside me. And the only way I can get it out is for me to go in, and going in meant becoming a police officer.”
To pursue that goal, Adams entered the New York Police Academy from which he graduated in 1984 as the top student in his class. A tenure at the New York Transit Police culminated with a transfer to the New York City Police Department where he enjoyed assignments in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, Clinton Hill, and Fort Green and Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Along the way, he earned an associate in arts from New York City College of Technology, a bachelor of arts from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a master of public administration from Marist College. In 1995, in reaction to the election of Rudolph Giuliani as mayor, Adams cofounded 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care, an advocacy group meant to address the relationship between the NYPD and the African-American community. He also became active in the Grand Council of Guardians, an organization of African-American law enforcement officers throughout the state.
Then, in 2006, when Adams went on television and criticized Mayor Michael Bloomberg, he was investigated by the NYPD. No doubt, opinion of him was affected by his continued involvement in 100 Blacks, which one publication described as “an organization that called out racist policing by the NYPD during the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations.” That same year, Adams retired after 22 years on the police force with a final rank of captain
In the primary—which for the first time in a New York mayoral race used a ranked-choice system, allowing voters to list up to five of their top choices for office—Adams received 50.4 percent of the vote to Garcia’s 49.6 percent. The difference was a mere 7,000 votes. Had Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Garcia instead of Wiley, Adams may not have won the primary.
But, with a victory behind him, Adams proceeded on to the November general election to face a Republican opponent who has been a prominent personality in New York politics for four decades: Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels and a radio host. Sliwa never mounted a viable campaign to challenge Adams. It was, therefore, not surprising when Adams won in a 40-point landslide. The impressive victory, by a Democrat who rejected the clarion call of the progressive movement to “Defund the Police,” caught the attention of Democrats around the country who understand what it takes to win in areas outside the major metropolitan liberal strongholds. “A lot of time crime overtrumps what party you’re from,” says former Democratic Congressman Ronnie Shows of Mississippi. “Eric Adams is a Blue Dog moderate. I think that’s where most voters are. People don’t want to defund the police. They want retraining and more money put into recruiting good people.”
