By Sean Kirst
Monday, March 27, 2006
'Guy who rebuilt Harlem' aims for Upstate revival
Randy Daniels called the other day. He is a Republican candidate for governor. He wanted to interject a few thoughts
about whether Democratic front-runner Eliot Spitzer got it right recently when he equated Upstate New York, and its
economic woes, to Appalachia.
Spitzer got it wrong, insisted Daniels, a former secretary of state for Gov. George Pataki, who is not running for re-election.
"We had jobs, and we had investments in these (Upstate) communities, and our policies drove them out," Daniels said, referring to
decades worth of Upstate economic decline. "Appalachia never had the investment, they never had the jobs, and that is the fundamental
difference."
The population of the big Upstate cities continued to bleed under the Pataki administration. Teenagers in those cities continued
to drop out of school at a dismaying rate. And all of Daniels' opponents - Democrats Spitzer and Tom Suozzi and Republicans William
Weld and John Faso - will have an easier time separating themselves from Pataki's legacy.
The obvious question is how Daniels can maintain he has a new, dramatic vision for changing Upstate when little that was sweeping or
dramatic happened under his old boss. Predictably, Daniels put much of the blame on the Democrat-dominated state Assembly. But he also
had a more intriguing answer.
Anyone who questions his ability to confront entrenched Upstate problems, he said, need only look to one place: "I'm the guy who rebuilt
Harlem," said Daniels, speaking of a commercial renaissance built around 125th Street.
A lot of sources offer credence to that claim.
"Until recently," said The Village Voice in a 2003 article, "no major retailers were willing
to risk putting a store in Harlem. Today, with millions in support from the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ),
the site called Harlem USA has an HMV, a Modell's, an Old Navy, and a Disney Store as well as a New York Sports Club,
a Magic Johnson Theatre, and Hue-Man Books, the largest black-owned bookstore in the state. . . ."
Daniels, the article continued, "had a significant role in the area's commercial boom. As secretary of state . . .
(he) has oversight of all business incorporations and various licenses, and works with local officials to implement
the state's building code, the operation of the coastal management program, and the training of firefighters. But Harlem
development has been perhaps his real career."
That revival, Daniels said, has direct Upstate application. Harlem had its own sense of despair, of lost cultural greatness.
The rebound on 125th Street began, Daniels said, once he was able to "change the power dynamics" in the area, which he again
sees as a parallel to Albany and Upstate.
To Daniels, Upstate is far more like Harlem than Appalachia. "I know how to do this stuff," he said. Critics of his Harlem policies,
those who see trendy franchise stores as a sacrifice of true neighborhood character, are out of touch, Daniels contends.
Cities revive, he said, by capturing or regaining a productive middle class. In that same fashion, Daniels promises to speak more
to Upstate hopes than to its woes. "You don't knock a man down in order to lift him up," he said.
While he agrees that profound change demands political courage, he said there are pragmatic ways to make it happen. As an example,
he said, it is clear that Upstate has too many overlapping governments and school districts. But local politicians live with the
electoral risks of trying to bring about consolidation.
So Daniels said the state must offer incentives of enough magnitude to win over leery voters. The big offer, he said, would be a state
takeover of county Medicaid responsibilities "as an incentive for consolidation of local governments."
All of that, however, would demand a cooperative relationship with the state Legislature, especially the Assembly. Daniels, a former
Democrat who spent much of his career as a television newsman, maintains his statewide goal is "to go out and build a new majority that
most Republicans don't believe is possible and most Republicans wouldn't even try. But this is the only way to rebuild New York."
For voters in Central New York, the most important signal is that Daniels spent an hour on the phone, talking Upstate. It is only March,
yet Spitzer's comments on the region have become the hottest button for debate in the campaign.
Daniels, for his part, did not even mention Faso, Weld or Suozzi, his other opponents. His whole focus was on Spitzer. He said he'd jump
at a chance for a debate in Syracuse. And he said, in the coming months, he intends to prove this statement:
"I get Upstate," Daniels said, and it's not Appalachia.
Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Post-Standard. His columns appear Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Call him at 470-6015 or
e-mail him at skirst@syracuse.com or visit his blog and forum at www.syracuse.com/kirst.
© 2006 The Post-Standard. Used with permission.
