NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Getting Primaryed for Being Too Conservative

Over
at
USA Today, Glenn Reynolds (the Instapundit) interviews
Zephyr Teachout, who is challening Democratic Gov. Andrew
Cuomo in New York.

A snippet:

Q. What’s your position on Gov. Cuomo’s Startup New
York initiative, which offers steep tax breaks for businesses
that locate or expand in New York?

A: Gov. Cuomo’s economic development policy boils down to favors
— tax breaks. Startup New York, his marquee project, is
effectively just a 10-year corporate giveaway. What this means is
that the program is cutting deals, not forming substantive policy.
Pitting states and even areas within New York against one another
just to shift around jobs and economic activity does nothing to
promote sustainable business and job creation, nor guarantee it’ll
stick around once the giveaways expire. A real economic development
policy would address the root issues hampering business growth,
like access to credit and marketplaces so dominated by giant
companies that it is impossible to compete. Swaths of New
York lack the fast and reliable Internet you need to compete
in a 21st century economy. So a real innovation policy would push
cable companies to compete and build out and improve service.

Note that Teachout is far to the left of Cuomo,
who took office as a pragmatic centrist pledging to improve the
Empire State’s business climate but has been lolling left ever
since, at least when it comes to raising taxes, halting fracking,
and the like.
Cuomo recently signed off on supporting a minimum wage hike in
an explicit deal to nail down the Working Families Party’s
endorsement of his re-election campaign.

More here.

Teachout is a Fordham law prof and her agenda strikes me as
terrible despite her substantive charges of cronyism, dumb
subsidies, and worse. If there’s one thing New York doesn’t need,
it’s more power emanating from Albany. There’s no reason to think
that Teachout or Wu will get New York
out of the cellar of the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax
Rankings.

But as Matt Welch and I have talked about in various places,
it’s always good to see incumbents getting primaryed. It’s the best
way to keep partys and voters involved and on the up and up. Which
is exactly what Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) told Reason TV last week.
Take it away:

REASON:…You famously primaryed a long time incumbent.
Are primarying candidates generally a good idea, even if the
challenger doesn’t win? Like McDaniel versus Thad Cochran in
Mississippi it’s an analogous situation. Is that a place where
the lines are kind of clearly drawn, where you have a guy who has
been in power for a long time and always seems to be happy to
go along, spend a lot of money, versus a challenger. Is there
a clear choice there for you on whom to back in that situation?

LEE: In order for the Republican party, or any political party
for that matter, to be able to lay any claim to being a party
of principle, there needs to be a robust debate within
that party. And for that to occur I think primary elections
will always need to happen.

Watch Lee talk about “Killing the Export-Import Bank, Primarying
Republicans, and Mormonism” below.
Full transcript and links here.