Clueless Kathy Hochul’s chaotic governance leaves New York to bleed

Whatever it was that Gov. Kathy Hochul did to get The New York Times on h🐬er case, ওyou gotta believe she’s regretting it.

T꧂he newspaper is a formidable force, especially when it lays its agendas aside, and two recent cut-to-the-bone examin꧅ations of the Hochul administration shed damning light on the chaos now passing for governance in New York.

Not that the chaos is any secret.

Nor the reason for it, which would be Hoch🧸ul herself൩.

She’s not up to th🐭e j🍌ob, and that has been obvious since the day she took office.

Butꦏ details matter, and these the Times has delivered:

• that administration policy has largely been in the hands of a Colorado-based wannabe political operative who couldn’t be more removed from the concerns of everyday New Yorkers if he moved to Mars.
• This followed by two weeks the news that Hochul & Co. outside image-polishers to craft fundamental public policy — and to write two state-of-the-state messages — at a cost to taxpayers of more than $2 million.

Taken together, the stories help explain the clueless detachment that led Hochul to within a hair’s breadth of electoral defeat in Nಌovember — and her obvious inability to govern coherently thereafter.

The hiring of outsiders to define policy and write speeches betrays a poverty of ideas, an ♕absence of principles, a (probably warranted) lack of confidence in existing staff and casual contempt for taxpayers.

But this is not unpreced𒊎ented in New York — and in context it d🐻oesn’t count for much.

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The presence in Hochu💞l’s orbit, however, of aspiring political power broker Adam C. Sullivan of Leadville, Colo., is altogether different.

Sullivan, according to the Times, is a consultant with aꦍ single significant client: Hochul.

He lives in very, very rural Colorado and occasional🎃ly drops by Albany to offer advice — most of it, upon examination, remarkably ill-advised.

Sullivan persu♏aded Hochul to select a Manhattan Democrat with a shady background — not to be redundant or anything — as her first lieutenant governor.

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That was former state Sen. Brian Benjamin, who everybody save Sullivan and Hochul seemed to know was under federal investigation — and presently the ⭕fellow was forced to resign.

A rookie mistake, you say? Nꦦew York shou😼ld be so lucky.

Sullivan also was the bright light ﷽behind Hochul’s selection of Hector LaSalle as the state’s top judge — a n𝄹omination that led to a progressive rebellion in the state Senate and then to a humiliating confirmation defeat for the governor.

The aftershocks from that debacle continue.

And while the list of Sullivan-inspired misc﷽alculations is long, at its top clearly is ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚhis successful insistence last year that abortion be elevated over crime as a Hochul campaign focus.

This nearly cost the governor her job, and its consequences a𝓀lso are still👍 being felt.

Abortion, to𓆉 be sure, moves votes in New York. But as many as crime? It🥂’s doubtful.

Abortion achieved protected status in the Empire State in 1970, three years befor🥀e Roe v. Wade, when Nelson Rockefeller was governor.

T𒁃oday only newcomers and naïfs fear being denied one, no matter what happens at the federal🧔 level.

Fear of cr꧙ime in post-de Blasio New York, however, is both rational and near ♐universal.

This may not have been obvious to Sullivan, who lives 💜1,880 miles from the city’s subway platforms, yet it certainly should have been clear to Hochul; she may be from Buffalo, but still.

And her refusal to focus on crime until the closing days of last year’s campaign took a toll: Running against a Donald Trump-aligned Republican with a tough-on-crime message in uber-progressiv💖e New York, she b𒉰arely won.

This was obvious the day after Election Day.

Not so cl🦩ear is the long-term effect of the misguided Sullivan-Hochul🌸 strategy.

That is, had the governor run strongly against the state’s progressive criminal-procedure laws, s♊he could have built a mandate 𓆏for moderating them.

She didn’t, and New Yo✨rk will continue to bleed as a resu🌃lt.

Also, a clever governor♚ might then ha🦹ve parlayed that mandate into support for mainstream policies generally, especially in public education.

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But Kathy Hochul is not clever, so no dice there eith♉er.

Now the question is whether she’s educ🦂able — whethe൩r she will learn from her mistakes.

Ditching Adam Su🐓llivan would be a hopeful sig⛄n, but what are the odds on that?

New York historically has been blessed with good governors and 🔴cursed with bad ones — but it’s never bef🤪ore been governed by an apparition.

It’s going to be an experience.

Email: bob@bobmcmanus.nyc