One thing it's been interesting watching the rise of the New York mayoral candidate, Zoran Mamadani,
is a Democrat, is watching precisely how much of the Democratic machine has come out to support him.
After he won the Democratic primary, of course, normally the party would fall in behind him,
and in fact, some prominent Democrats have come forward and endorsed him, but not all of them.
Not some of the most important New York Democrats.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.
And I'm bringing all this up today because watching this,
it reminded me of the story of another charismatic politician ages ago,
Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago.
Harold became mayor back in 1983.
And that was so revolutionary at the time that a black man would become mayor of the city of Chicago that after the primary,
the Democratic Party turned on him,
and an old-school Democrat, a white guy,
ran as an independent against Harold in the general election,
much like Andrew Cuomo has done with Mamdani.
But back then, most of the Democratic machine endorsed the white guy in the general election.
Then, once Harold took office,
Democrats continued to fight him and the changes that he wanted to make.
I want to be clear, like I don't want to oversimplify in comparing these two stories.