As a Member of “The Exhausted Majority”
Many of you may know that I left both major political parties almost ten years ago. I was a democrat, then a republican, then back to a democrat. I did not vote for Trump, or Hillary or Biden in 2016 or 2020.
I am a true, independent outside watching our politics from the ‘exhausted majority,’ the new term given to the 25% of us in the middle of our American politcal discourse who are willing to vote 3rd party, but in the end, have to chose between the D and the R.
In the New York State general election on Nov. 8, I don’t want to vote for either Democratic Kathy Hochul or Republican Lee Zeldin. I’m not comfortable with some of Hochul’s pay to play instances over the new stadium for the Buffalo Bills and the fact that the taxpayers of New York paid twice the going price for COVID test kits. Not to mention crime.
I can’t vote for Lee Zeldin because he voted against the election of 2020 on January 6. While many Americans had questions about the outcome of a razor thin victory for President Joe Biden, Trump won by the same razor thin margin in 2016 over Hillary.
But for Zedlin to vote against certifying the election results while a man walked through the US Capitol with a Confederate Flag, to me is disqualifying from being elected Governor of NY.
Here’s the bigger problem: For the first time since 1946, New Yorkers have only two choices on the ballot for Governor in 2022-Kathy Hochul, who is on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines, and Lee Zeldin, on the Republican and Conservative Party lines.
All of the other minor political parties in New York State have been eliminated, thanks to an agreement by former Governor Andrew Cuomo and state legislators in 2019 to make it more difficult for smaller parties to have ballot access. Cuomo was ticked off at the WFP and Cynthia Nixon for running for Governor against him in 2018. The irony is that the WFP still exists, while other smaller parties, like the Libertarian Party, Green Party, SAM Party and Independence Party, were unable to survive.
Two candidates for NY Governor are running write-in campaigns this election: Larry Sharpe, the Libertarian candidate, and Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate. I have decided to write in the candidate that I though would make the best Governor months ago, and still do today, Harry Wilson.
Wilson ran in a republican primary campaign for Governor, losing to Zeldin in June. Well financed attempts to secure a third party for Wilson to run on failed, which proves how hard it is to get on the ballot now in NY. Larry Sharpe also failed in his bid to get on the ballot as a Libertarian for Gov.
Several independents, democrats, and never Trumpers have told me the same thing. Harry Wilson would have made a great governor, and if Zeldin loses by a whisker, Wilson could have won, and his experience turning around corporations would have benefited our state. And his moderation could have help bring together the 40% on the far right and the 40% on the far left.
But unfortunately, Wilson’s type of politics don’t work in New York, or in many parts of the country anymore. He is not far right or far left, he sits in the middle of our American political discourse with those of us who are now dubbed “the exhausted majority.”
