You Op to Know: Political Round Table Edition — New York state mid-term elections

Welcome to You Op to Know, The Daily Orange Opinion section’s weekly podcast.  

This week, The Daily Orange Opinion section brought on some of our political columnists to discuss the 2018 midterm election.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to submit a letter to the editor at opinion@dailyorange.com.

Check back next week to listen to a dialogue about the most viewed column.

TRANSCRIPT

WEIS: Hello everyone, I’m your host and producer Allison Weis and welcome to The Daily Orange’s opinion podcast You Op To Know. Tonight we have liberal columnist Ryan Golden, moderate columnist Jaylen Coaxem, and conservative columnist Harrison Garfinkle on the show to discuss the upcoming midterm election. Welcome everyone. So to start everyone introduce yourselves, what column you currently write and why you started writing your particular column.

GARFINKLE: Well, I’m the conservative columnist here today and I started writing because I was very politically frustrated with the stuff going on and felt like I needed to get it out some way.

COAXEM: I’m the moderate columnist, I felt exactly the same way that he did. I felt there were polar opposites, and I felt like there needed to be some middle-ground.

GOLDEN: Same thing, I’ve been frustrated with my own side of the aisle, a lot of my columns are about why I believe the liberal side is screwing things up.

WEIS: So first, to start off, what are your general feelings about the mid-term election this year. Who should we be looking out for and who are you supporting on the ballot?

GOLDEN: My general feeling is that I am just anxious. We are eight days away and then I can sleep. Really just trying to see how things go, optimistic for my side of the aisle when it comes to the house, not as optimistic for the senate. In terms of who I have for the ballot, it’s pretty much a straight democratic ticket; Cuomo, Gillibrand, Balter, Shadia Tadros for city court judge, things like that.

COAXEM: I am skeptical for the Blue Wave, I’m not sure if the advocacy for voter turnout will actually pull through, hopefully it does. As for right now, I’m not in favor of Cuomo or Gillibrand at the moment.

GARFINKLE: I agree, there aren’t too many people I’m excited about, but I think it is important to not go to the ballot for your party but for integrity, because we’ve seen what the alternative leads to.

WEIS: According to Bethanie’s column, Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro has concrete plans for I-81’s replacement. Do you think a new governor will lead to change for Syracuse and Upstate New York or will they just end up being empty campaign promises?

GARFINKLE: I think they will wind up being  empty but not to that extent. I do think upstate will get more attention just because it’s been ignored for so long, but I’m optimistic, I’ll say that.

COAXEM: I think it will, I have a slight different perspective being from the city. I’ve seen how Cuomo treats the city, and obviously we get tons of treatment, but at crucial moments we don’t get a lot of attention and neither does Upstate New York. I hope that a new governor we will mean changes both Upstate and Downstate.

GOLDEN: Not being from anywhere near New York, just as an outsider watching, I don’t think it matters who gets elected governor in terms of I-81. This is purely an upstate issue, when most of the legislature is elected downstate, and most of the money is from downstate, I-81 is not going to be as much of an issue. I do think it will be solved but it won’t matter if its Cuomo, Molinaro, or whoever gets in.

WEIS: There were a few columns this semester about the upstate/downstate divide in New York State politics. Dana Balter had a forum on the Syracuse University campus. As Syracuse students, why should we care about what is happening in Central New York?

GARFINKLE: I think it’s important that we care about where we’re living, even it’s for only four years. If the area around us thrives even if it’s off campus, that’s good for us too.

GOLDEN: It’s not just necessary about Central New York but Syracuse. If you go just off campus, there are a lot of students who are afraid to go off campus. They don’t understand greater syracuse. They don’t understand the amount of benefits this university gets by not paying any taxes to the city of Syracuse. If we did make those contributions, the city would be much better. I think that if the student body does get connected to the syracuse area I think they will realize how much we benefit from the city and how much we can do to benefit the city.

COAXEM: I agree with that. On the topic of upstate, downstate divide, I think a lot of people especially in Upstate New York feel that their vote doesn’t count because the city gets a lot of weight because that’s where most of the population is. Each vote counts. Not only encouraging our student body to vote for integrity rather than party I think encouraging that and spreading that energy to outside of Syracuse will make a huge difference.

WEIS: The Student Association is trying to increase voter turnout for SU students. What is our responsibility if any to care about what’s going on outside of the university bubble while we are going to college in Syracuse?

COAXEM: We definitely have a responsibility, given that we are a private university, given that we have a higher socioeconomic bracket compared to the outside Syracuse and Upstate New York. It’s not up to us but we do set the tone. In the city, I live near Columbia University, it comes off as this elite private university doesn’t care about the community that they’re in. Often times the community were these big schools are, aren’t as well off as the students that go there politically and economically. I think the university setting a positive tone not only for us but the people that are around, is crucial.

GOLDEN: I think it is important because we do feed off the city. On game day, whether it be last Saturday or any other day, you’ve got half of Syracuse police out there directing traffic. I think it’s important to recognize that this is still your city, no matter how long you’re going here for, this is your city and you need to treat it as your city.

GARFINKLE: I just disagree with the respect use I guess, I think it needs to be looked at as mutual benefits. If we are all looking for favors with each other, that’s not effective. We need to look at it as they are doing stuff for us, we are doing stuff for them and that’s better for us also.

WEIS: Does anyone have any final thoughts going into the mid-term election?

GOLDEN: It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with the New York State senate. There’s a lot of races in play that democrats, the IDC lost nomination and now the challenge is filling those seats with democrats for the democratic party. The republicans have a real opportunity to take those seats, maybe not rely on turncoat democrats for their membership. That’s going to be where the big fight is in the state, not necessarily Cuomo verses Molinaro, concerning whether the democrats can take back the senate in reality.

GARFINKLE: I just want everyone to talk. I think we should open aisles of communication that don’t already exist because things are so polarized. I think a lot of us are on edge with the current state of politics in America. The only way we can get through that is by talking to each other.

COAXEM: I 100 percent agree. A lot of the discussion concerning voter turnout has been largely liberally based I’ve seen a lot of advocacy from the left to get young people to vote, and not as much from the left to get young people to go out to vote and not as much from the right. The right is obviously in the presidency and in the senate, they have a very strong base and they know how to target their base. For the democrat party, they are millennial based. So for Syracuse, not only should young liberals should go out and be encouraged to vote, but also young moderates, young conservatives, vote for what you believe. Not just because everyone is voting liberally, you should vote for what you believe.

WEIS: Thank you so much for joining us everyone! Stay tuned for next week’s podcast where we will discuss more of our columns. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to submit a letter to the editor at opinion@dailyorange.com. We’ll talk to you next week!