Democracy UFT Style

I called this Thompson endorsement by the UFT leadership a long time ago.

It wasn't difficult to see that this was the candidate they would eventually endorse.

John Liu is tarred by scandal, so he wasn't going to get the nod.

Bill de Blasio was seen as too lefty (as noted by one of the Unity slugs in a comment at Gotham Charter Schools a few weeks back), so he was out.

Quinn, had she still been polling strong, might have been their pick because the most important objective the UFT leadership wanted from this endorsement was to pick a winner.

But Quinn has fallen in every poll taken since February and is no longer the presumptive frontrunner in this race, so the UFT leadership could take a chance and go with somebody other than Quinn.

That somebody was Al D'amato's, Merryl Tisch's and Randi Weingarten's favorite candidate, Bill Thompson.

The sham of all of this is that the decision was made weeks ago, but the UFT made believe like they were going through some "democratic process" to come to the endorsement decision.

But as with every other decision the UFT makes, from the sellout on the Common Core to the sellout on APPR, the fix was in and the decision was made by the union elites and handed down to the rank and file.

That's why they had Thompson ready to go yesterday right after the endorsement announcement, that's why they had the posters already printed up.

The good news in all of this is, as I noted yesterday, winning the UFT endorsement doesn't give Bill Thompson much juice other than a day of headlines and some extra cash for the campaign.

Mulgrew can preen in the papers about the vaunted UFT GOTV machine, but the truth is, this is a paper tiger union with most of its power base residing on the golf courses in Florida.

Most members I spoke with yesterday, both in my school and at Regents grading after school, said if Mikey Mulgrew wanted them to vote for Bill Thompson, then there must be something wrong with Bill Thompson.

I think that's EXACTLY right.

Any candidate who enjoys the support of Al D'amato, the hedge fund/charter school contingent, Merry Tisch, Randi Weingarten and the UFT is a candidate who should not be trusted.

Just like the "democracy" the UFT engaged in to anoint Bill Thompson their candidate.