For Teachout or against Cuomo?

People support Zephyr Teachout because they like her approach: liberal, fresh, open, not part of the Albany political swamp.

But it's hard to argue that much of her support probably is equaled by frustration with Governor Cuomo.

In short:

He has failed to implement meaningful tax reform. The "cap" is a short sighted, poorly implemented, doomed-to-fail attempt at slowing the increase in property taxes. The only way to deal with this is head-on: the State has to accept more fiscal responsibility for local governments, especially schools.

He has not done anything meaningful to improve elections in the State. We have three viable models for how to elections better: Clean Money, Clean Elections (Maine, Arizona); primary balloting (California, Louisiana); email voting (Oregon). We ought to be doing all three. Or improving on them. Instead, he made a half-hearted attempt at public financing before throwing his hands up in defeat.

He hasn't done anything to fix corruption in this State. Do I believe that his actions with regards to the Moreland Commission are criminal? Facts aren't in, but no, I do not think what he did was criminal (to be fair, Preet Bharara disagrees and appears to be much more knowledgeable). But I do think he acted in line with the general political sleaze and corruption in Albany: protecting his allies and donors and trying to claim credit for the opposite of what he really did.

Why would I support any of that?

I've heard many say that Teachout is unelectable. Some seem to think she isn't experienced enough, others that she is too liberal.

Right now, the only people we have in New York with the "appropriate level" of experience are part of this same corrupt milieu. It may be, in fact, that we have to turn outside the establishment to find someone willing to do the necessary things.

As to being too liberal-- New York is one of the most liberal states in the Union. How does that argument even get made?

Do I think Teachout is likely to win tomorrow? Probably not.

Do I feel like I'm wasting my vote by voting for her? Definitely not.

I'm using my vote to send a message to the Governor and others in Albany: enough of the same-old, same-old. It's time to fix the State instead of continuing down the paths that have not worked so far.