Russell Shorto: All Political Ideas Are Local
In January 1861, as Southern states were in the process of seceding from the union, Fernando Wood, the mayor of New York, made a modest proposal to his city council. New Yorkers - whose city profited from the shipping of Southern cotton - weren't crazy about the idea of a civil war. Wood's idea was that if the South severed its ties to the United States, New York should, too. Under his plan, the city would refashion itself into "a free city" called Tri-Insula - comprising Manhattan, Staten Island and Long Island - which would do business with both the North and South as they fought each other, thus sidestepping carnage and substituting business sense for patriotic fervor.
Tri-Insula never happened, but Americans have always tended to treat New York as if it had. The "it feels like a foreign country" line is a standard souvenir that visitors from other parts of the nation take home with them. New York is different - both literally and metaphorically insular. And, for more than a generation, it has been far from the center of American politics. It once held sway over the national political scene, but there hasn't been a New Yorker in the White House since F.D.R., and as the state drifted downward in relative population since 1970 - after being the most populous state from the 1820's through the 1960's, it is now third and ranks 46th in rate of population growth - political wisdom came to hold that electable presidential contenders should hail from the South or the West. Sure, New York has power, it has money, it has restaurants that top their dishes with wasabi foam, but that makes the point, doesn't it? To McMansion-dwelling exurbanites driving their Yukons down the interstate to the local big-box store, Manhattan is airy and unreal, more of a jazz-age stage set than somewhere they'd go in search of real-world political ideas or leaders who know their meat-and-potatoes concerns.
Strange, then, that in recent presidential-preference polls for 2008, Americans' top choices include New York's junior senator, Hillary Clinton, and the city's former mayor Rudy Giuliani. Granted, such polls taken three years out are lousy predictors (in 2001, one poll had John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, ranked fifth among would-be Democratic candidates, with around 3 percent support); but they are barometers of the moment in which they are taken. Toss in the fact that Gov. George Pataki, who has ruled out running for a fourth term, popped up at an Iowa county fair this year - an indicator of presidential ambitions - and you have the makings of an anomaly.
So what does it mean? Possibly, nothing. The crowd of potential New York candidates is easy enough to explain away: Giuliani's nationwide strength derives from the prominence that 9/11 gave him, Pataki hopes for some of the same and Clinton is a one-of-a-kind figure. But on closer inspection, these factors relate back to New York's uniqueness: the World Trade Center was attacked because of what New York is and represents, and the former first lady surely chose New York as her base for similar reasons. ...
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Tri-Insula never happened, but Americans have always tended to treat New York as if it had. The "it feels like a foreign country" line is a standard souvenir that visitors from other parts of the nation take home with them. New York is different - both literally and metaphorically insular. And, for more than a generation, it has been far from the center of American politics. It once held sway over the national political scene, but there hasn't been a New Yorker in the White House since F.D.R., and as the state drifted downward in relative population since 1970 - after being the most populous state from the 1820's through the 1960's, it is now third and ranks 46th in rate of population growth - political wisdom came to hold that electable presidential contenders should hail from the South or the West. Sure, New York has power, it has money, it has restaurants that top their dishes with wasabi foam, but that makes the point, doesn't it? To McMansion-dwelling exurbanites driving their Yukons down the interstate to the local big-box store, Manhattan is airy and unreal, more of a jazz-age stage set than somewhere they'd go in search of real-world political ideas or leaders who know their meat-and-potatoes concerns.
Strange, then, that in recent presidential-preference polls for 2008, Americans' top choices include New York's junior senator, Hillary Clinton, and the city's former mayor Rudy Giuliani. Granted, such polls taken three years out are lousy predictors (in 2001, one poll had John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, ranked fifth among would-be Democratic candidates, with around 3 percent support); but they are barometers of the moment in which they are taken. Toss in the fact that Gov. George Pataki, who has ruled out running for a fourth term, popped up at an Iowa county fair this year - an indicator of presidential ambitions - and you have the makings of an anomaly.
So what does it mean? Possibly, nothing. The crowd of potential New York candidates is easy enough to explain away: Giuliani's nationwide strength derives from the prominence that 9/11 gave him, Pataki hopes for some of the same and Clinton is a one-of-a-kind figure. But on closer inspection, these factors relate back to New York's uniqueness: the World Trade Center was attacked because of what New York is and represents, and the former first lady surely chose New York as her base for similar reasons. ...