Mark’s Corner: Nydia’s passion and engagement a stark contrast to supposed opponent, by Mark Shames

On January 21st I attended a meeting of my old political club the Independent Neighborhood Democrats.  The draw for that meeting was an opportunity to hear from our sitting Congresswomen Nydia Velazquez and Yvette Clarke.  We thought we would hear from Nydia’s primary challenger the banker and former deputy superintendent of the NYS Banking Department Mr. Yungman Lee, but he begged off and was a no show.    

Congresswoman Velazquez spent over a half hour speaking to the club about those things that matter to the club from the full array of civil rights and justice issues for minorities and women, to jobs, global warming and infrastructure restoration post Hurricane Sandy, health care, and the economic safety net, to immigration reform and compassion for refugees, national security concerns and the need to give our fellow citizens, the Puerto Rican people, the tools to right their financial system.   She also spoke about certain mailings to the district from a PAC called “Political Action Now” that is organized to aid her primary opponent but more of that later.  At the end of her presentation she took any questions from the audience.

Yungman Lee didn’t even deign to show up. Showing up is the essential first step for anyone who would be a leader.  While he may be known in banking circles and his Chinatown base, he is virtually unknown in the rest of the district.  Here he had a chance to stand before a group of his politically engaged future constituents and start a dialogue with them.  He could have attempted to explain why they should trust him with their well being as a community but he chose avoidance.

There is little doubt that he would have faced a crowd that would have at a minimum been skeptical but these Brownstone activists are nothing if not polite (okay maybe I could think of one who might have given him a hard time) and he would have gotten a hearing and perhaps some if not much support.  I remember well our enhanced respect for former District Leader Steve Cohn when he spoke movingly to the club despite knowing that he was not going to receive its endorsement for City Council.

Yungman Lee would not even sit for the first test of his capacity for leadership.  I would have thought that a banker and lawyer would know that when you don’t show up you automatically get an F.

Isn’t the fact that he is virtually unknown in vast stretches of the district enough of a hindrance to his campaign?  Doesn’t his skipping of opportunities to get known by the people of the district and get some press coverage for his agenda put a crimp in his plans?  However, what disqualifies him from consideration in my mind is the brazenness to use of a PAC to kick-off his campaign by sending out expensive mailers suggesting guilt, not even by association, but by mere geographical proximity to a discredited politician.  This is nonsensical.

I have always maintained respect for Congresswoman Velasquez, although for too many years she had her own problems with some of my associations, but that is now the past.  She can never be successfully characterized as indifferent or unaccountable.  It just won’t stick.  In fact she is both passionate and engaged.   Mr. Lee has given us no reason to want to replace her with him and he will not get my vote.