I Asked Weingarten About the Hochul Robocall
I am at the Network for Public Education (NPE) second annual conference in Chicago, Illinois. I just attended the Sunday morning keynote, Diane Ravitch in Conversation with AFT’s Randi Weingarten and NEA’s Lily Eskelsen Garcia.
At the end of the session, I was briefly able to interview American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten regarding her September 8, 2014, robocall in support of New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s running mate, now-lieutenant governor Kathy Hochul.
I caught Weingarten at the end of the session as she was greeting members of the audience, so when I use the term, “interview,” I mean that it was my intention to interview her regarding the robocal, and I did so in the moment, without any warning to Weingarten.
I walked up to the stage and asked, “September 8th, the robocall you did in support of Kathy Hochul: Do you admit that your actions directly contributed to the re-election of Andrew Cuomo?
Weingarten responded, “No…yes… no. They were separate items on the ballot in the primary.”
Me: “So a vote for Hochul was not a vote Cuomo given that Hochul was Cuomo’s running mate?
Weingarten: “No. They were separate on the ballot.”
Me: “One more question: Was it the intention of the Democratic National Party to use the robocall for Hochul as back-door support for Cuomo?”
Weingarten: “No.”
However.
On May 21, 2014, Cuomo chose Hochul as his running mate, and on that day, the Democratic ticket was considered “complete:
MELVILLE, N.Y. — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday (May 21) named a former congresswoman from Buffalo to be his running mate, a move that completes the Democratic ticket and underscores his courtship of western New York.The selection of the former congresswoman, Kathy Hochul, to run for lieutenant governor, which was revealed as Democrats met here for the party’s convention, resolved the one lingering unknown about the governor’s carefully planned re-election bid. …Ms. Hochul adds a measure of diversity to the Democratic Party’s statewide ticket….
So. Even though Hochul was listed separately on the ballot in the primary, I Asked Weingarten About the Hochul Robocall | deutsch29: