Saturday, October 29, 2005

A NYC without Jews or abandoned buildings: I'll pass.

Writing at Gothamist about the "Rent is Too Damn High" political party, Jen Chung gives the Monty Pythonesque party the benefit of the doubt:

[P]art of McMillan's [of the Rent is Too Damn High party] hypothesis is that the Jews may be running New Yorkers out of the city. For example, he states, 'If You're Not Jewish, You Will Be Run Out of New York...' and speculates that Jews pretending to be Jews but aren't actually Jews are behind various schemes (or something like that). Well, that certainly won't appeal to Jewish voters. However, part of his platform, making sure that there are no abandoned buildings in the city in order to ensure housing for all, does make some sense.

Not to use a well-worn argument here or anything, but suppose a candidate suggested all this city needs is to get rid of all black people and, say, improve teacher quality. Well, part of that platform also makes some sense. But when another part of a platform makes the party one for raving, racist lunatics, then it's your duty when blogging about it--unless you, too, are a raving, racist lunatic--to ignore all the reasonable things the candidate may say, so as not to encourage people to vote for such a person. Because if this guy won, abandoned buildings would be the least of anyone's concerns.

Also, Chung writes that the party "certainly won't appeal to Jewish voters." Um, what voters in NYC will it appeal to? Chung seems to like their platform (read her post and see for yourself) so that's one vote they can count on.

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