[OFFICIAL] NYC Mayoral Primary thread, was: Andrew Yang Announces Candidacy for NYC Mayor

Yang-Bros replacing Bernie-Bros and Yang goes back on his transparency promises before changing directions after criticism.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...-culture-backlash/ar-BB1di8Zb?ocid=uxbndlbing

 

Why would he post on Clutchfans during Linsanity?

 

This was not a great reply.

“We have absolutely nothing to hide,” Yang said. “And I’m on the record as saying that everything works better when you have great women leaders.”

 

The sexism claims seem like a bigger issue than having staffers sign an NDA. Neither of which are campaign ending. The referenced Business Insider article is behind a paywall...

Former Yang staffers say they experienced sexism, hostility on presidential campaign - Business Insider

https://www.thedailybeast.com/forme...culture-in-andrew-yangs-presidential-campaign

 

I think the two are connected in that the complaint is that the NDA prevents them from speaking out about the sexism stuff and thus protects the culture. But I agree, neither is campaign-ending. It's more insider-baseball type stuff.

 

Initial paragraphs detail bro culture typically found in Investment Banks or Silly Valley startups. White bois w/ MBAs get ahead. Women who complain get shafted.

The "4chan incident" refers to a botched play by a staffer to astroturf the internet's ******* and make it look like they we're roused into supporting Yang.

The end bits are most interesting. He should fire his manager, but it's likely without Graumann, Yang wouldn't have the energy or wherewithal to groom his image. A bit Trumpian...

Inside Andrew Yang's presidential campaign which former employees say was rife with sexism and a hostile 'bro culture'
Yelena Dzhanova
41-51 minutes

• Former staffers who worked on Andrew Yang's presidential campaign described the experience as "toxic."
• They told Insider they experienced sexism, discrimination, and hostility from top male campaign leaders.
• "We didn't do enough in 2020," Yang said in a statement to Insider. "Ultimately, the blame for that falls squarely on me."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

....

Yang asked the former volunteeer how she was, and she told him she wasn't doing well because the harassment targeted at Reilly was freaking her out.

"As I'm talking, his face is just getting more and more like he's horrified, like he just saw a car accident," the former volunteer said. "He had no idea what I was talking about."

"Then at the end of what I was saying, he just kind of looks down at me and he's like, 'I think you should do something fun this weekend.'"

Reilly told Insider that Yang called her personally within hours of the doxxing and knew all about it by the time she called the FBI. She said the campaign provided support and protection to deal with the harassment. "We got extra security at events that I was organizing and attending," she said. "They put me in touch with the FBI, checked in constantly, and asked if I needed time off."

'I told you to do something and this is ****ing insubordination'
Male staffers were also subjected to intimidation by Yang's upper management, sources told Insider.

Former staffers characterized Graumann as a particularly abrasive person.

Graumann was a tall, striking, blond man who could "charm the **** out of you," the former volunteer said. In and out of the office, he thrived on fundraising calls, urging donors to give substantial sums of money to the campaign. But beneath that charm he had an intimidating demeanor, one staffer said.

In February 2019, Shinners, a lawyer, was concerned that the campaign was using photos without properly crediting them. He included the copyright and credit under each photo the campaign used for digital marketing efforts, press releases, and newsletters.

"Can you stop doing that? It looks like ****," Graumann told Shinners, according to the former volunteer, who said she witnessed the interaction.

Then, Graumann got up from his desk and screamed at Shinners, the former volunteer said. "I told you to do something and this is ****ing insubordination. And if I have to tell you again, you're ****ing fired," Graumann said, according to the former volunteer.

Shinners declined to comment on Graumann's alleged remarks.

'If I asked you to call me Twinkle Toes, would you call me Twinkle Toes?'
Graumann at times openly questioned the pronouns of a nonbinary employee working on the campaign, a source told Insider.

Merlin Patterson was a web developer for the campaign and used "they" pronouns. Graumann refused to say "they," the source said.

"Explain to me why I should call Merlin they," the source recalled Graumann saying.

"If I asked you to call me Twinkle Toes, would you call me Twinkle Toes?" Graumann asked out loud, the source said. When the source explained to Graumann that the employee was trying to advance the campaign website and it's not wise to "piss them off," Graumann finally relented.

"That's what finally got through to Zach," said the source, who took notes of the incident on the day.

Patterson, in an interview with Insider, said they weren't aware of this incident. Graumann in a statement to Insider denied having made the remarks about Patterson.

'There was definitely a bro culture'
As Insider prepared to publish this report, Graumann called Patterson to apologize that this "hit piece" was coming out. Graumann told them the remarks in this report about Patterson are not true and he "would never say that," according to Patterson.

"There was definitely a bro culture," Patterson said, describing their view about the campaign in an interview with Insider.

"Some of the values espoused publicly were not held internally," Patterson, who quit the campaign in November 2019, added.

Two months after their departure, Patterson sent an email to Yang outlining the reasons they were unsatisfied working on the campaign. The email, reviewed by Insider, specifically pointed out the near absence of women, LGBT people, people of color, and disabled people from campaign leadership.

"The leadership of this campaign is almost entirely straight white men," Patterson wrote. "This campaign is running to elect you to be President, a position that presides over the entire country of many diverse populations. If the campaign does not reflect the country, how will you attract the votes you need?"

Yang never responded to or acknowledged that email, Patterson said.

Graumann — who is still senior advisor to Yang, according to his LinkedIn, and has been using his social media platforms recently to hype up Yang's mayoral bid — was the most "inappropriate ****ing manager I'd ever seen in my life," the former volunteer said.

"I can laugh about it now, but believe me, this is only because of the distance," she added.

The whipped cream incident
Several former aides told Insider that Yang never seemed to be aware of any chaos within his campaign. And there were times they thought he didn't exhibit good judgment when it came to behaving like a presidential candidate in public.

Yang, for example, sprayed whipped cream into a kneeling supporter's mouth, a moment caught on camera and posted on Twitter and news outlets. Graumann quickly pulled Yang aside and urged him to stop.

Even in the nascent stages of his campaign, Yang "was handled by Zach," the former volunteer said. Yang adopted a "hands-off approach" working on the campaign, she said. "He never took an interest" in what was going on internally. "He wanted to just be told where to go and who to talk to."

Graumann may have been partially to blame for Yang's insulation from the inner workings of his campaign, a former staffer said. As far as she knew, he sometimes left out crucial information when speaking to Yang about internal affairs. The former volunteer cited the repercussions of the 4chan incident as an example of something it was important for Yang to know about. But "he did not get the whole story," she said.

Patterson, the web developer, echoed these feelings. "It really felt like it was Graumann who was really in charge," Patterson said. "And Andrew was not aware."

"It's not that he didn't appreciate what we were doing. He just didn't believe in it," the former volunteer said about Yang. "You could tell that he just wasn't emotionally there. He would sit in meetings on the phone, ignoring what was being said about his own campaign strategy. He was not present, but he was physically there, but he was not present for so many strategy meetings."

"We didn't do enough in 2020," Yang said in a statement to Insider. "Ultimately, the blame for that falls squarely on me. It will not happen again either on this campaign or in my administration."

Many staffers said they had positive experiences working for Yang
One former staffer who worked with Yang in New York said he had a positive view of him, calling him "pragmatic" and describing the work culture as "strikingly passionate."

Ericka McLeod, who worked for the Yang campaign and is now organizing his mayoral bid, gave similar remarks in an email to Insider.

"Working for Andrew means you are ready to support the hard work he intends to do. This is in complete alignment with his views on how to bring about an economy that works for all people, which attracted me to his campaign in the first place," McLeod said.

But feelings of a "boys' club" culture drove away even some of his most ardent female supporters.

"Despite the toxicity within the campaign, I am a huge basic income activist. I've been a basic income activist for years before I joined the campaign," the former volunteer said. "I still believed in his message."

"But I just couldn't take it anymore," she said.​

 

Wang Gang.

 

Virus doesn’t care if you think Jeremy Lin can play basketball

 

They may not be campaign ending but they really damage his brand and in NYC those are all hot button issues.

 

The news is a few day old, but I am somewhat surprised at his frontrunner status. If he does in fact end up winning, I wonder what kind of political/bureaucratical/cultural headwinds there would be to implementing his big ticket items.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/538168-poll-finds-yang-with-big-lead-in-nyc-mayors-race

Poll finds Yang with big lead in NYC mayor's race

Spoiler

Andrew Yang holds a double-digit lead in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, according to a new poll released on Wednesday.

The poll from Fontas Advisors and Core Decision Analytics shows Yang notching 28 percent support among likely Democratic primary voters. His closest rival, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, came in at 17 percent, while New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer finished third with 13 percent support.

Shaun Donovan, a former Obama administration official, and activist Maya Wiley tied for fourth place, scoring 8 percent each in the poll. No other candidate included in the survey broke 2 percent. Another 19 percent of respondents said they are still undecided.

Yang, a tech entrepreneur, gained a national profile during his unsuccessful bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, during which he campaigned on the idea of a universal basic income that would involve paying all adult Americans $1,000 per month.

That national profile appears to have given him an early advantage in name recognition in his mayoral campaign.

Eighty-four percent of respondents said that they have heard of Yang, giving him the highest name identification of any candidate in the crowded primary field. Stringer, for instance, finished second on the front, with 66 percent saying they have heard of him.

The issues at the top of New York City primary voters’ minds are the coronavirus pandemic and reopening and reviving the city’s economy, according to the poll.

Thirty percent of respondents said that preventing the spread of COVID-19 and distributing vaccines was the single most important issue for the next mayor. Another 19 percent said that reopening the economy and creating jobs was the most pressing challenge.

New York City has been among the areas hardest hit by the pandemic since it emerged as an early hot spot for the outbreak last spring.

The poll reflects the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on the city’s residents. More than half of respondents — 57 percent — said that they experienced significant economic harm as a result of the outbreak, including 26 percent who said they “strongly agree” with that sentiment and 31 percent who “somewhat agree.”

The poll was conducted by Core Decision Analytics from Jan. 20-25 and includes responses from 842 online interviews with likely Democratic primary voters in New York City. It has a margin of sampling error of 3.38 percentage points.

 

Lulz

 

I won't believe anything until tonight at 12:00am.

 

He could always just change parties.

 

LOL, the bottom section doesn't listen to rap music, it might offend them!

 

Damn. First covid now a stone. Ouch.