Watching Gov. Hochul stumble from one blunder to another, I’m reminded of Casey Stengel’s exasperated question about the hapless 1962 Mets: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
As it was with the Mets, the answer in Hochul’s case is a resounding no.
More than three years after she took office, the accidental governor is still afraid to take off the training wheels.
She’s not running Albany.
Albany is running her.
The Legislature, far-left activists and the bureaucracy are in charge.
The state and city are in obvious decline, but she hasn’t delivered a single reform big enough to make a real difference.
High crime, public disorder, the migrant explosion, inferior schools and outrageous taxes are driving families out of New York.
Antisemitism is on the rise on nearly every college campus in the state, including in the SUNY and CUNY systems Hochul controls, yet she says little and does less.
The bigger the problem, the smaller she appears.
On her best days, she’s a caretaker for the status quo.
And now she’s compounded the disaster with a foolish effort to play hide-and-seek games with Donald Trump.
This can’t end well for her or New York.
The recent head-scratching conduct began with her pre-election claim that any New Yorker who voted for any Republican was anti-woman and anti-American.
It was a dumb thing to say under any circumstance, and especially so given that a September poll found that state voters were more unhappy with her job performance than ever and gave Trump higher marks than she.
A wiser politician would have gotten the point that she’s offsides with many voters, which was confirmed when Trump won the presidency with an Electoral College landslide and got a startling 44% of the turnout in deep blue New York.
Outrageous alliance
Hochul’s immediate response was to pick an unnecessary fight with him.
She and Attorney General Letitia James held a nasty press conference where they took turns warning Trump they would come after him with hammer and tong if he screwed with their priorities.
It was juvenile showboating, and Hochul’s decision to team up with James was doubly dumb given the AG’s outrageous civil fraud suit against Trump, his family and his businesses.
Unless, of course, Hochul also believes that political opponents should be targeted and the courts used to punish them over manufactured violations.
Perhaps realizing she had gone too far, the next day Hochul spoke out of the other side of her mouth by saying she had a “productive” phone call with Trump and pledged to work with him on big capital projects.
Trump reportedly responded in kind because he loves his hometown and has often said he would do whatever he could to help the city and state where he and his family made their fortune.
Congestion tax slap
The story should have ended there, in a good place for New York under a new president with a passion for getting big things done.
But, as it often does, the obvious point escaped Hochul.
She was secretly playing yet another angle, with aides soon telling leftist media she was going to quickly impose the congestion pricing tax she had paused in June before Trump takes office so he couldn’t stop it.
Even office politics doesn’t get any dumber.
Or perhaps Hochul has mistaken Trump for a piñata and New Yorkers for fools.
To risk a budding relationship with the president whose party controls both houses of Congress is a form of malpractice beyond comprehension.
In case Hochul missed the other part of the election, Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries are now the minority leaders of their chambers.
That means they have little to no power, so when it comes to favors, Trump is the only game in Washington.
Moreover, the congestion tax represents a unique case of political dynamite.
Hochul had pushed it as an answer to the MTA’s chronic funding issues, so her sudden pause was a mystery.
That is, until reports surfaced that Jeffries asked her to stop it because it was so unpopular in the suburbs that passage threatened Dem House candidates.
Hochul denies any pressure, but there is no denying that the timing conveniently took the issue off the table before voters weighed in.
And now presto — it’s back in play even before all the votes are counted.
Pay more to live here
She is said to be considering a $9 tax for cars instead of the planned $15, but it’s the ultimate cynical ploy at any price, one exacerbated by her daffy attempt to circumvent Trump.
The MTA’s finances are an evergreen mess, with out-of-control labor costs a recurring theme.
A more recent problem is fare-beating, with the agency estimating it has lost as much as $750 million annually from riders refusing to pay.
On some bus routes, as many as 50% of passengers ride for free, yet Hochul wants to pour more money into the leaking bucket and let the MTA leadership off the hook.
There’s plenty of money in the state’s massive $237 billion budget, but instead of using some of the billions recklessly thrown at the migrant surge and requiring the MTA to tighten its spending, Hochul did what Albany always does: demand that New Yorkers pay more for the privilege of living and working here.
Adding yet another tax only gives commuters another reason to avoid the city, which means they won’t be spending money shopping, going to the theater or eating in restaurants.
If nothing else, the timing of Hochul’s clumsy handling of the Trump relationship serves as the latest proof that fate has a sense of humor.
GOP candidate Lee Zeldin nearly pulled off an upset against her two years ago, and he is now Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
It’s a wise choice and Zeldin’s selection is America’s gain, while New Yorkers are left to wonder what might have been if he were calling the shots in Albany.
New York Slimes vs. prez-elect
Anti-Trump headlines from the New York Times homepage on Tuesday shows the Gray Lady is still in campaign mode:
“Europe Braces for Trump: ‘Worst Economic Nightmare Has Come True’ ”
“The U.S. is the biggest trading partner for the European Union and Britain, whose economies could be at risk because of President-elect Trump’s policies.”
“Doubts Grow Over the Booming Trump Trade, and Trumponomics”
“Trump’s Tariffs Could Deal a Blow to Mexico’s Car Factories”
And the No. 1 dumbest example of all:
“Trump Starts to Fill Out Cabinet With Loyal Defenders”
So he should pick a disloyal Cabinet?
