What an elected official does immediately after losing a primary is frequently a valuable clue as to what they plan to do in the future.
Case in point: Eric Gioia hammered away at Bill de Blasio for his ties to the Working Families Party, and ran several television ads making the point. Then, after losing the primary, Gioia endorsed de Blasio.
One knowledgeable reader suggested it was part of Gioia’s penance and first steps on the long road to making peace with the WFP, which would be helpful should he run for another office. One possibility could be the Senate seat held by George Onorato, the Democrat in northwest Queens who is not in favor of same-sex marriage, and has generally kept a low profile and avoided policy fights.
David Yassky’s post-election attitude toward the WFP, by contrast, is suggestive of someone who’s not immediately making calculations about his next bid for elected office.
He and the other comptroller candidates avoided any major criticisms of one another until he got into the run-off with John Liu. After losing to Liu, Yassky co-authored a column in the Daily News warning about the dangers of the Working Families Party’s rising influence.
“The problem is that the WFP is driven not simply by ideology, but also by the very specific interests of its component parts,” which have “an interest that is often at odds with the public interest,” Yassky wrote.
Not mending fences with that one.
I emailed Gioia and Yassky and will update when I get responses.
UPDATE: Yassky emailed to say he does “not know what future plans are. Right now, making up for lost time with my family, trying to tie up loose ends of council term and ensure smooth transition to next councilmember and looking at job options for January.”
