Voters cast their ballot at a polling site in Queens on Election Day Nov. 3, 2020. (Michael Appleton/ Mayoral Photography Office)
Feb. 10, 2021 Op-Ed By Brent O’Leary
Do you want to have a say as to who the next mayor is—or who your next city council member will be?
If so, I urge you to check your party registration and make sure you are registered as a Democrat. The deadline to do so is Feb. 14, and I want to make sure you are heard.
Unfortunately, our primary system cuts off the voices of millions of New Yorkers who are not affiliated with a major political party—particularly the Democratic party.
In a blue city like ours, our representatives are typically determined by the outcome of the Democratic Party primaries. Therefore, if you want to have influence on your future representative you should register as a Democrat.
I understand many New Yorkers choose to remain independent when they register to vote, feeling that the Democratic party doesn’t represent their views. I know the Democratic Party is far from perfect.
Photo: Brent O’Leary is a candidate running for the 26th district council seat (Photo: olearyforcouncil)
But by registering as a Democrat, you can help shape the party’s future and take it in a better direction.
While the majority of people are registered as Democrats in New York City, millions are not.
In fact, the second most common party affiliation across our New York City is “blank,” with over one million voters unregistered in a party.
In Queens’ 26th Council District, which I’m running to represent, more than one in five eligible voters are blanks, according to Board of Elections enrollment data. These people will have no power in selecting the candidates who will be in the general election.
In truth, unaffiliated voters aren’t the problem – our state’s closed primary system is what cuts millions out of the democratic process. I support moving to open primaries, but in the meantime, we have to do our best to make the 2021 elections as democratic and representative as possible.
Millions of New Yorkers will be disenfranchised unless they change their party registrations before the upcoming February 14th deadline.
I ask you to add your voice to the process and empower yourself and our community.
If you are not sure about your registration, I ask you check here. If you are not registered as a Democrat, I urge you to do so and register here.
Brent O’Leary is a candidate running in the 26th District Council race. The 26th district includes Sunnyside, Woodside, Long Island City and parts of Astoria.
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11 Comments
Well not voting for JVB for Queens Borough President or anyone else who shadowed him or has any association with him. Tired of the same politicians, need someone to stand up for decency, clean streets, graffiti removal, clean parks, cops walking a beat and stationed outside of local high and middle schools and subway stations in our district when they are let out once full time schools are running again, write up tickets for public drinking. Marijuana smoking, loitering, keep moving and you wonder why so many are just miving out of NYC. These politicians got it all wrong, we want and need the opposite need more law and order if not the battle is lost and NYC will never recover.
In the near future when we look back at Mr. O’Leary’s candidacy , a few things might stand out.
First, a timing of a candidate’s announcement is incredibly important. For the many of you who don’t know, Brent bafflingly announced his candidacy years ago and attempted to act the councilman in waiting, shadowing Van Bramer at dozens of events and campaigning in an utterly boring vacuum. This has been completely foiled by a slew of more qualified candidates announcing recently and riding with momentum Brent never got.
Second would have to be ranked choice voting. While largely untested, it opens up the field, dilutes the vote, and forces candidates to try to appeal to, and not alienate, wide swaths of voters.
Which leads us, lastly, of course, to the elephant in the room: Mr. O’Leary’s support of the wildly unpopular Queens Streets for All charade. The candidate seemed to mistake participating in that nihilistic astro-turf war as an exercise of political expediency. The result? The only businesses with Mr. O’Leary’s poster are the handful of members of the Sunnyside Chamber of Commerce.
The north side is dominated by Julie Won, the south side by Amit Bagga. And Mr. O’Leary is left holding the TJ’s takeout bag as he realizes most of the anarchist Queens Streets for All base were either Trump supporters, “confidential” conspiracy theorists, or otherwise non-registered Democrats.
“But by registering as a Democrat, you can help shape the party’s future and take it in a better direction.”
Not really. The trend is the socialist progressive aka the far left. With De Idiot’s incompetence over the past 8 years, you would think the far left will be losing steam, but quite the opposite. How AOC, Bowman, and Torres keep promising the world to their constituents on everyone else’s dime is disturbing, especially for Bowman who didn’t pay his taxes and now wants tax hikes, himself. But yet, this is a lost cause. I saw your campaign website. Same progressive mantra of mass transit, schools, and affordable healthcare as your other cronies.
Progressives are the most deceitful and shellfish of all politicians. Look at De Idiot. What has he done? He is gallivanting around town touting his “successful” vaccination plan, which I hope everyone knows is a joke. Before that what did he do? He tweeted as much as Trump about Trump. He was obsessed with Trump as much as the right wing. Instead of helping the city, he painted murals in front of Trump Tower, or tried find ways to change Trump’s name on tourist attractions that help build the city’s economy just to antagonize his man crush. But don’t forget the daily briefings of uselessness where each day the infection rate numbers of the city were different from the numbers Cuomo had for his bloated daily briefings of uselessness. And you wonder why the mass vaccination has been awful? And did old De Idiot ever meet with important business leaders to find a way to rejuvenate the city? Has he addressed the increased subway crime which his own police chief admitted on the increasing problem? Of course not, even though that’s what the city needs! We need jobs and need to feel safe in our neighborhoods and subways. That’s how the city will grow to support hospitals, schools, and infrastructure. De Idiot’s legacy should open the doors for better political options, but we keep getting the same progressive nonsense. Instead of uplifting their constituents to work hard and better their lives and their kids lives, you remind them of the “poverty” and “inequalities” of their lives and push them to complain and whine until they get what they “deserve” by voting for you and the rest. You want to control how much they make, where they live and where they work and give these people a false sense of freedom. What a joke! Last time I checked fast food is not a career! Public housing should not be permanent. Welfare is not an entitlement. Nor is citizenship. People should be responsible for their lives, not the government. But this is not the progressive way.
Progressives alienate citizens who do the right thing and live the American Way. They want to punish the successful and guilt everyone for not following their views. And to those who oppose them… they are branded as either a Trump supporter, a racist, a selfish capitalist millionaire, a right wing militant or all the above, and will use their handy tool of cancel culture to humiliate, have him or her fired, or have their life ruined. Look at the black NY Times reporter who was forced to resign after a racial slur he used in the past was discovered. Most likely taken out of context just like everything else people use now a days to attack each other. Progressives are bullies, who use guilt over the “socioeconomic disparity” of the black and brown communities for their platform. How else do you explain BLM signs in these new expensive homes in Bushwick. Guilt the new generation of pampered easily brainwashed white liberals. Either that or they just put up those signs just so they don’t get robbed.
I keep straying off topic here, but all the BS over the past few years has gotten me woke! Its time for the progressive BS to be exposed. The progressives make excuses for their constituents. Look at all the looting done. AOC and the rest said during the pandemic people had to feed their families, so they had to do what they had to do to feed themselves. If this was true, wouldn’t you loot a supermarket or a wholesale retailer if you and your family was starving for food? You can eat the evidence, and there would be more empathy in people’s eyes. Instead they looted Louis Vitton, Gucci, Best Buy, Gamestop, the Apple Store…etc, where I’m sure the goods stolen can be traced. Unless the Apple Store sold apples and or you can eat designer handbags, then I must be mistaken. And one of the POS leaders from BLM said “So… they have insurance!” Easy to say when its not your business or you money. You know who else saw the BS from BLM, Latino gangbangers in Chicago. Look it up. They knew what the “peaceful demonstrators” were up to, so they guarded their neighborhoods! And how do you argue this, progressives? Answer how you explain the poor Asian man who was slashed from ear to ear. Minority on minority crime where the perp is wearing a LV mask and dressed better than his victim who happened to be working two jobs to make ends meet. Is this another anomaly aka mental health? Systemic racism? Socioeconomic disparity? How would an unarmed de-escalator handle this?
Lets be woke to the BS of the progressive movement. The people of NYC deserve a better alternative than this progressive nonsense.
Something like “Trump 2020!” I assume? Is that decent summary?
Reading is fundamental. If it’s too hard, try ABC Mouse. But assuming what I wrote made you the….
Retort if you want, but let’s make a decent argument before humoring us all with your wit.
Is there anything else that’s bothering you? Hopefully the bars will be back open soon.
If you’re a right leaning candidate set to lose a democratic party primary in one of the most progressive areas in the city, maybe you just aren’t the right candidate?
Another bait and switch to get people to register as Dems and stay that way even if they do not agree with party platform, etc. This would destroy the two-party system.
In other words register as a dem and vote for me and forget the two party system because we dems are doing a great job ruining the city
Never again.
Fortunately, not unfortunately, we have a closed primary system. We have political parties and only members of a particular party should be allowed to elect their candidates. Otherwise we invite a free-for-all.