As if you hadn't noticed already, the 2016 Presidential Race is alive and well right here in New York City.
Almost every news outlet is rich in coverage of the appearances, missteps, platforms, policies, and general shenanigans of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, all vying for the votes of New Yorkers.
But where the rest of the country has fallen over themselves in excitement, New Yorkers have remained largely unimpressed with the lot of them.
So what’s going on here?
Why aren’t the Candidates getting more love from New Yorkers?
Here’s where they took the missteps that inspired less cheers and more “Meh” from Gotham
Hillary Clinton
Hillary, we get it, the MetroCard bugs us too. New Yorkers get irked on a daily basis when we don’t get that Metrocard swipe juuusssst right. It’s all in the wrist, you gotta slide it just so, while not gripping the card too tightly.
Yeah, you’re gonna get the dreaded “swipe again” beep from time to time but Jeez, lady, you gotta hold it together, alright? This is a nuisance, not World War III.
[anad]
That’s why Saturday Night Live did a cold open on this, it was funny as Hell. Watching Kate McKinnon do her panicky Hillary Clinton impression, desperately diving over the turnstiles made this writer spew beverage all over the living room.
Not a good idea to start your New York campaign as a joke. But the most unlikely source, her closest competitor, saved Hillary on the subway thing.
Bernie Sanders
Bernie, Bernie, Bernie. What were you thinking? You were on your way to interview The New York Daily News, a paper not exactly known for playing patty-cake with Presidential candidates, and you tripped up huge right out of the gate.
When the Daily News asked him how he got to the interview, Sanders said the subway, and that he used a token to get on.
Let’s just say that again, Bernie Sanders is using subway tokens. How many subway tokens you got in your pocket right now? Hillary might have not been able to get her MetroCard to work correctly right away, but at least she knows that’s what New Yorkers have been using for more than a decade now.
There’s a joke to be made here about how old men are the most likely to still have antiquated ways of doing things, but this is pretty unlikely with Bernie, and it set the tone for the rest of the interview. The Daily News, probably angered by Bernie’s feeble story, proceeded to knock the stuffing out of him.
And by doing so, they opened up real concerns for New Yorkers.
It’s well and good to want to dissolve Wall Street, but what do you replace that with? That’s a lot of jobs and a vital part of New York’s economy, so if you’re going to tear it down, you better have something to insert into the hole you just made and give those suddenly jobless New Yorkers somewhere else to go.
Sanders didn't have a concise answer that day, and ever since he's been feeling the burn.
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Donald Trump
He gets the hometown nod on the Republican side by default, but one thing is very clear: New Yorkers haven’t been impressed with Donald Trump for a while.
He’s like that big talker who starts fights at the bar, but never gets in them himself. He’s that guy who takes credit for other people’s work. He’d cheat on his wife by making a move on your girlfriend.
Or not. But you get that intuition as a New Yorker; the vibe of an undeniable phony; a braggart. He was born rich, which, we should remember, doesn't mean you've accomplished anything.
[anad]
The only people who seem to be impressed by people like Trump tend to skew towards the likes of sycophants, cowards, and generally hateful people.
We should also question who, if not the inherently frightened or bigoted, has Trump compelled to vote for him? You may have heard that his own children completely forgot to register to vote and now can't cast a ballot for their own father in the upcoming Primary.
Trump's act was stale decades ago. He’s only not listed last because of the next two guys on the list.
John Kasich
He plays himself off like he’s a nice guy moderate Republican, but he’s actually an ideological extremist who only looks halfway normal because of the other two remaining raving lunatics on the Republican side.
Not that any of that matters, your typical New Yorker couldn’t pick him out of a police lineup, let alone be impressed by him.
Ted Cruz
The junior Texas Senator has made it clear time and time again that he hates New Yorkers. Actually. Hates. Us.
He voted against sending aid to New York after Hurricane Sandy; called New Yorkers baby-killing heathens; said “New York Values” are what’s wrong with America right before exploiting 9/11 as the reason why we must carpet bomb families in the Middle East.
So New Yorkers hate him right back. The other candidates are disrespected here in varying degrees, but Cruz is actually loathed. Pizza Rat would get more votes than him. Actually Pizza Rat might do better than anyone on this list. We know Pizza Rat. He's a Washington outsider. He's a family man.
Cruz, on the other hand, we don't know about. How do you intend to monitor all Muslim neighborhoods and then have the audacity to show up in the South Bronx, a neighborhood rich in cultural history, diversity, and tolerance?
[anad2]
The takeaway here is that Republican candidates have a much tougher go of it when it comes to getting respected by New Yorkers. Donald Trump is regularly featured on the cover of The Daily News in clown makeup, and Ted Cruz has the Statue of Liberty flipping them off.
That makes Kate McKinnon making fun of Clinton’s turnstile fumbles look pretty good in comparison.
New Yorkers are diverse. New Yorkers are smart. New Yorkers are tough to impress. But New Yorkers are compassionate as well. We know what it is to get hurt. We know how to help each other in times of trouble. We know there is a bigger picture than just us.
That’s why a Presidential candidate who doesn’t do well in New York is not going to do well for the entire country.
Check out 14 Places Every Born & Bred New Yorker Should Check Out Before They Die.
[Feature Image Courtesy CNN]