Putting Football Before Our Future
In case you haven’t heard, the New York Giants won the Super Bowl. Congratulations and all that. See? I may be a Patriots fan, but I’m not a sore loser.
Normally, a victory parade is scheduled a couple of days after a team’s victory. In the case of the Red Sox this year, the parade fell on a Tuesday following their Sunday victory. The Colts’ victory parade in 2007 was on Monday. The same holds true for the Steelers’ parade in 2006. There is no defined tradition here, but teams typically want to ride the wave of the victory back into their hometown. The Giants opted for Tuesday.
These parades involve more than just a march through the streets. As is the case with most sporting events, alcohol is almost always involved. Already this morning, I’ve heard stories of Giants fans drunkenly wandering the streets to “pre-game” for the parade. There will be drinking after the parade. Workers call in sick for the day, or just sneak out. It’s an all-out celebration.
Today happens to be the date of one of the most important primary elections in our nation’s history. Today, both Democrats and Republicans will choose between seemingly similar but surprisingly dissimilar candidates who will take our country in very different directions. It is the duty of every citizen to participate in our democratic process. But instead, lower Manhattan will be mobbed with drunk, excited Giants fans who either don’t care about the electoral process, or just plain forgot to care.
To make matters worse, three polling sites along the parade route will be mobbed by sports fans. The NYPD promises to keep a clear path to these sites, but would any person in their right mind want to walk through throngs of drunkards just to vote? And is it voter intimidation if you have to face the wrath of these fans just for walking through the crowd without wearing a Giants jersey? On a day when nearly a million New Yorkers are expected to vote, the City of New York actually had to relocate Board of Elections workers because of the parade. When we put a celebration for a sports team ahead of the most sacred tenet of our democracy, we have really made a sad statement on where we place our priorities as a city.
The Giants’ excuse for the timing of the parade is that the players have to travel to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl this weekend. I think they meant player, not players, since Osi Umenyiora is the lone Giants representative at the Pro Bowl. For one player, they can’t make an exception? What’s preventing him from showing up a day late? He just won a Super Bowl ring. I think they’d be willing to give him a pass.
New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg wouldn’t budge at all. “A lot of people have the day off, so they can vote and can work at the polls, and that is what democracy is all about,” he said to the New York Sun.
Really, Mayor Bloomberg? I sure don’t know a single person who has the day off to vote today. I do know people who are skipping work to get drunk and go to the parade today. But that’s certainly not what democracy is all about.
So far, in every primary state, voter turnout has been significantly higher than normal. People have waited in long lines, suffered through hours of caucusing, and have carefully planned their day to make their voices heard. But in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut - all Super Tuesday states - most Giants fans will choose to drink themselves into oblivion to celebrate their team’s victory, rather than making an important choice that could change their own future and the future of this nation.
Update, 1:20pm: Another impedient to democracy added by the parade: the New York Times is reporting that “the Board of Elections was delayed in sending workers to fix [problems with voting machines] because of traffic delays caused by the huge crowds in Lower Manhattan watching the ticker-tape parade for the Giants.” One precinct they cited went four hours without a working voting machine this morning.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Politics, Sports. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
NYCPond Chick says:Yes, that is really sad, they could have held the parade for one day at least..and those same loud mouth guys screaming in the streets will be the same guys to be complaining when the person of their choice doesnt get voted in unfortunately.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Adrienne says:Hear hear! This is exactly what I said Sunday night after I found out that the parade was scheduled for today- I think it is so sad that many many people will not vote because of the Parade when it easily could have been another day.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
z.madison says:I went to the parade this morning. Didn’t see one drunkard.
Now I’m back at work and will be voting when I return to my neighborhood tonight.
I doubt I’m the lone exception.
Just saying…
February 5th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
brookLyn gaL says:z.madison- you may not be the lone exception, but you are certainly an exception. I saw tons of Giants fans on the subway on their way to the parade this morning, and the overwhelming majority were drunk.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Benjamin Kabak says:I think you’re overestimating the number of crazed Giants fans who would have voted in the primary anyway. Sure, it’s not the best timing, but it’s hardly a challenge to the very foundation of our democracy.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Chris says:z.madison: Really? Funny, I wonder why a newspaper in New York had a guide to bars along the parade route.
Benjamin Kabak: It still doesn’t excuse the fact that polling stations along the parade route are mobbed by drunk Giants fans. When we are putting a sports team’s fans ahead of people wanting to exercise their democratic duty, we are challenging the very foundation of our democracy.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Benjamin Kabak says:I agree with you on that point. The polling stations along the parade route are problematic for sure.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Todd says:I have to disagree with you guys. Parade or not, voting still requires an individual to make the effort to show up and vote. I had to wake up early to make it to the polls because I have work and school today. If someone decides to go to a parade instead of voting, it’s their fault, not New York City’s. If you want to argue that Election Day should be a federal holiday, fine, I’ll agree with that. But complaining that there’s a parade today is silly. Just go vote before the parade.
Also, I don’t agree that having poll stations near the parade “challenges the very foundation of our democracy.” It’s not like the Giants fans are blocking people from voting. If your district is in Lower Manhattan, crowds are nothing new to you.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Chris says:Todd: It’s not like the Giants fans are blocking people from voting.
If you’re 72 years old, look outside your window at the polling station across the street, and see hundreds of thousands of people out there, are you going to vote?
February 5th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Todd says:If you’re 72 years old and you live in a district that’s located in lower Manhattan, I’m pretty sure you’re used to crowds. It’s not like the parade is happening at a nursing home.
February 5th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Paul says:The fact that any sports fan would put a parade ahead of the political process is reason enough to make me perfectly comfortable with their vote not being counted. I agree with Todd, it’s up to the individual to make the effort. The parade doesn’t last all day.
February 5th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Chris says:Todd: No matter what your age, people living in Lower Manhattan are not used to crowds that big. Period.
And in case you need a photograph to back that up, do you think they look out their window and see this sort of scene every day?
February 5th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Ha Ha Sound says:What’s most surprising to me is that you described amNY as being “a newspaper”.
You’re going soft on it, are you?
February 5th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Chris says:Ha Ha Sound: I was waiting for someone to call me out on that. You win.
February 5th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Phil says:Voters deal with bad weather and the general hazards of their busy day to go vote, they can handle this too. And didn’t Boston, also in a Super Tuesday state, have their parade penciled in for today as well?
February 5th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Chris says:Phil: Bad weather can’t be avoided on an election day. Sending hundreds of thousands of people to lower Manhattan can.
I don’t know if Boston had the same plan, but I would have been just as livid about it as I am about New York having theirs. Democracy is much more important to me than celebrating a Super Bowl Victory.
February 5th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
courtney says:you’re so cute and idealistic
February 5th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Roann says:The Parade is now over but the polling stations are still open. With or without the parade, most people will do what they want to do. If they want to vote they will do so, if they don’t then that’s their prerogative.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Chris says:Roann: It doesn’t matter. If those parade-goers don’t vote, that’s their choice. But other people have already been inconvenienced because the city’s priorities were so screwed up today.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
eric the beehivehairdresser says:I don’t think that most NY Giants fans are of the voting kind anyways, due to the mindset of if I vote, I’ll get called for jury duty, and I wouldn’t want that.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Midwesterner in NYC says:Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue…
February 5th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Katherine says:While you have a point, I can’t remember the last time a ticker tape parade has been thrown on any day of the week NOT Tuesday. My father, who has been around a lot longer than my quarter century can’t either.
I think you’re also neglecting the fact that if someone truly, honestly wanted to vote today–there’s nothing stopping them. Polls were open for several hours before parade preparations and will be open until 9. This large mass of Giants fans who are going to or celebrating the parade that your assuming exist (because, you know–so many people turn out for primary elections already–note the sarcasm)…have more than ample time to do it. They can do it before, on their way to the parade. Or on their way home. Or once they’ve fallen asleep and woken up at 6 to eat dinner. Or anytime along the way. You’re putting too much stock in the political agendas of those people.
And as for the ones ‘put off’ by this, again…it’s not like there is some magical hour gap in which one can vote. Sure, three districts in Lower Manhattan may not have the luxury of going whenever they feel and may have to do it an hour later or early then they prescribed originally to do. That’s a bummer, really. But you deal. There was a double parked truck making it’s weekly delivery to the corner store across the street from my voting center and he backed up traffic, cars and–more importantly–my bus for over twenty minutes. We can’t stop the world for a primary election, nor should we stop it for a parade but…if someone’s more interested in taking the day off the get drunk and go to a parade than at some point in the day cast a ballot vote…I don’t know how much their opinion should really be counted (or rather, how much they care in the first place).
February 5th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Katherine says:P.S. This is New York–not everyone is a member of either of the two major parties and can actually go about voting in these primaries anyway.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Chris P says:I think you are definitely overstating the impact of the parade.
The parade route only went up Broadway and started at 11 this morning (and is now over). My guess is that a lot of people voted/will vote before/after work, so they missed all of the parade madness. My particular polling station is on Trinity place, which is off the main drag of the parade.
It’s not as if the parade took over the island of Manhattan and lasted all day. I’m sure a handful people were inconvenienced, but they were not physically unable to vote because of the parade.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
J$ says:so the streets were blocked for a few hours in the middle of the day in a primarily business/commercial district. how many people lived there, would have voted from 9-12p and need to cross broadway to get to their polling place? 10? 5? 0?
they should have moved the primary to a different day.
and fans who took the day off might be MORE likely to vote since they have the day off and they vote near their homes not their jobs. even going to the parade, they’d be home earlier than normal.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Jimmy says:Sounds like someone has sour grapes over the biggest choke in sports history.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Mike says:Check out this story in the Times…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/sports/football/05giants.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin
From the way it sounds, that ONE PLAYER (Umenyiora) won’t even be at the parade, since he’s already on his way to Hawaii.
February 5th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Alice says:I think you are arguing your point with non giants fans. Myself included, couldn’t imagine not voting because of some stupid parade.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Ali says:I understand your point, and this parade would definitely be indefensible in a general election. But since these are primaries, especally ones, as Katherine pointed out, where those of us who choose to make the political decision not to be a member of either party have no vote essentially, I think Bloomberg’s decision was justified. Motivated party members will defintely find a way to vote.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Chris says:I think you’re all missing the point here. This isn’t like grocery shopping. “Too bad, you’ll just have to come back later” is NOT an acceptable excuse in our democratic process, no matter if it’s a local election, a primary, or a general election. NOBODY should be inconvenienced by a government-sponsored parade while going to vote. It’s that simple.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Chris says:Katherine and Ali: You’re speaking as though the primaries mean nothing because nobody is really eligible to vote.
In Manhattan alone, there are over 850,000 voters with a party affiliation. There are less than 200,000 voters with no party affiliation.
So, you’re right - not everyone can vote today… just almost everyone. And that completely justifies blocking polling places with a parade.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Aaron says:I’m taking issue with people claiming that crazed Giants fans aren’t the voting types anyway. Sure, they’re drunk and excited today, but I’m fairly certain that I have been that way in the past as well. They’re die-hard football fans, but so am I. They’re celebrating their team’s amazing victory… something I’ve longed to do my entire life, but being from Philadelphia have never had the chance to do. Yet I have still voted in every election since I turned 18. But since I’ve been drunk before, my opinion shouldn’t matter?
As for J$’s assertion that they should move the primary to another day… are you saying that democracy should take a back seat to the NFL? The American Professional Football Association was founded in 1920… The U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1787. And what’s that song they sing before every game? The Star Spangled Banner? A song celebrating the symbol of what? Our democracy? But yes… the presidential campaign should definitely take a step back for a football game… And we should make sure the only primary scheduled for the Tuesday after the Super Bowl occurs in voting districts in Miami-Dade county since we can be assured the Dolphins won’t have a parade.
Decisions are made by those who show up. Hopefully people will.
February 5th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Todd says:“And that completely justifies blocking polling places with a parade.”
Chris P hit the nail on the head: “It’s not as if the parade took over the island of Manhattan and lasted all day. I’m sure a handful people were inconvenienced, but they were not physically unable to vote because of the parade.” Should I be upset because I had work and school today? No. I got up early and voted. Sure, it was inconvenient because I wanted more sleep, but I sucked it up.
February 5th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Chris says:Todd: Work and school are events within your control and you are made aware of them well in advance.
A parade is not such an event.
If the government knowingly interferes with the voting process, it’s voter supression. The government knowingly scheduled this parade for the day of the primaries.
Elderly voters often make plans to vote well in advance. If those plans are hampered with because of a parade, they may very well not be able to vote.
(This is the point at which commenters start to either (a) make fun of the elderly or (b) make inaccurate claims about the number of elderly voters in Manhattan that I then counter with statistics.)
February 5th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
Todd says:Or this could be the point where we refuse to accept where you’ve purposely steered the argument. The elderly are not incompetent. The parade was scheduled at least 24 hours in advance. Everyone, the elderly included, had the time needed to make additional/different plans. The polls were open far before and after the parade. If someone made plans that were then hampered, they needed to change those plans. The government didn’t schedule the parade with malice towards the voting public. They may have been short-sighted, but it wasn’t voter suppression.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Chris says:Todd: Well, now we’re getting somewhere. At least you admit they were short-sighted.
Again, I call out the elderly because it’s the easiest example to grasp. Let’s say you are home-bound, and you require a caretaker - or a family member - to bring you to the polls. It’s not that easy.
If the parade inconvenienced even one person while voting, the city is to blame for the problems it created. And you cannot argue that it didn’t inconvenience people, and that inconvenience could have been easily avoided.
February 6th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Todd says:You keep mentioning the elderly, but you haven’t mentioned the fact that the people who don’t have jobs have a far easier time getting to the polls then the gainfully employed. Even if they have a doctor’s appointment (because the doctor’s office wasn’t closed) and they have to go to the pharmacy (because the pharmacy isn’t closed) and they stop by the grocery store (also not closed), they still have time to soak their dentures, put on their favorite sweater, and make the long (3 block, or across the street as in your example) trek to the polling station.
Compared to the rest of Manhattan, the parade was held in an area with relatively low-density residential units. (For example, the picture you linked to was taken from an office building) The residences that do exist there are predominantly very expensive. These are residences for people who are young enough to still be working OR are retired and have enough money to hire someone to literally carry them to the polls if need be.
The parade may have inconvenienced a couple people, I’ll give you that, but showing up to work inconvenienced a whole hell of a lot more. If Primary Day isn’t a federal holiday, a parade doesn’t even show up on my “inconvenience” radar. Parades are easily avoided, work and school are not.
February 6th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Chris says:Todd: Parades are not avoided if they are directly in front of your polling place.
In your last comment, you completely ignored my very reasonable and common example of an elderly voter whose ability to vote is substantially impacted by the parade. There are plenty of others who wanted to vote on their lunch hour who were inconvenienced by this, but do they have to arrange private transportation to reach polling places like the elderly do? Did you know that campaigns typically require volunteers to drive and escort the elderly to polling places because they are unable to do so on their own?
In your comment, you also ignored the fact that rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments do exist in Lower Manhattan, like most neighborhoods in New York.
Want a better example? Fine. Let’s say you work two jobs to make ends meet and pay for that expensive apartment. You’re working the early shift at Starbucks - from 5am-noon, and then start work as a line cook at a restaurant uptown starting at 3pm. The only opportunity you have to vote is between noon and 2pm. If there’s a parade crossing your block and hundreds of thousands of people separate you from your polling place, you are seriously inconvenienced, and you have no other opportunity to vote.
There. Happy? Maybe that example will appeal more to a younger generation. Maybe I’m the only one who had very regimented grandparents who needed support to get to their polling places growing up.
As I said, one person disenfranchised at the hands of the city is one person too many when it comes to our nation’s most sacred democratic process. And I’m willing to bet a lot more than one person was disenfranchised by this mess.
February 6th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Lower Manhattan Resident says:I live (and vote) in Lower Manhattan, I’m not elderly, and I was seriously inconvenienced by the god-awful decision to hold a ticker tape parade the same day as the state’s primaries. I work long hours and on any given day there’s no guarantee that I’m out of the office by 9. In order to vote, I have to do it before work.
Yesterday, I left my apartment at 7 A.M., at least four hours before the purported start time of the parade. Nonetheless, I dealt with hordes of Giant fans–some drunk, some just obnoxious, and some neither–and barricades on every sidewalk and corner. Oh the barricades. I live three blocks from my polling place on Chambers street but I had to navigate a maze of steel barricades to be able to make what should have been a straight-shot trip. Despite assurances from Bloomberg’s office, the cops were utterly unhelpful (they appeared to have no idea about any voting that day let alone where it was happening) and they even impeded my walk to the polling station by refusing to let me use a barricaded crosswalk. When I finally got to the polling site, the crowd had doubled. After a quick two minutes inside the building–which was practically deserted–the amount of Giant fans clogging the sidewalk had grown exponentially. God help anyone who tried to vote after 7 A.M. and god help anyone in a wheel chair.
Granted, the parade ended an hour earlier than predicted, but I’m told the barricades remained up most of the day and the clean-up efforts (street sweepers, blowers, sanitation workers, drunk-and-passed-out fan removers, barricade stackers) went well into the night, and were still going on when I came back at around 9:30 P.M.
Don’t jump on Chris’s case because he’s a Pats fan. I pulled hard for the Giants to win that game, but this parade on that day was a piss-poor decision and I have no doubt at all that lower Manhattanites gave up their right to vote to avoid subjecting themselves to the pandemonium in their neighborhood. I was only inconvenienced, but I was one of the lucky ones.
February 6th, 2008 at 11:12 am
eric the beehivehairdresser says:I hope that there’s another $100 bill in your pocket to wipe the tears off of my face too, LMR…
February 6th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
The Omnipotent Q says:“Sounds like someone has sour grapes over the biggest choke in sports history.”
Hey Jimmy, you DO remember October 20, 2004, don’t you?
February 6th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Thom says:Eh, in other parts of the world, people have to deal with voter intimidation and the threat of violence at polling places, in addition to traveling several miles to polling places. So, you know — half a dozen of one, first-world problems for the other.
February 6th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Marjorie says:What was the most comments that you ever got on a post?
February 6th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Todd says:Thom raises an excellent point. Parades and violence at polling places are completely equal. The city should be blamed for the parade inadvertently discouraging people from voting as it would for allowing people to intimidate others with threats of violence. Also, the sky is red, whales can fly, and my ass smells like roses. (note: this paragraph, like Thom’s comment, is meant to be completely sarcastic)
LMR’s comments which said that the city’s “piss poor decision” led to “all lower Manhattanites gave up their right to vote to avoid subjecting themselves to the pandemonium in their neighborhood” are pathetically off base. There is absolutely no evidence that “all lower Manhattanites” were put off by the parade. Sure, they might’ve thought it was a pain, but to say that all of them didn’t vote is just absurd. This comment dragged the argument from a logical debate to a stupid argument. To this guy I say, “boo fucking hoo”
So now I’m back to Chris:
- I ignored the fact that the elderly were impacted by parade simply because they have more free hours during the day to work with. They’re not employed and therefore are not “substantially impacted by the parade” which lasted only a few mid-day hours. They had plenty of time to vote both before and after. Also, and I think this is a very important point, if they are limited by mobility, time, or ability to move through crowds, they should vote absentee! That method has always been an option, and for someone that does not have the ability to change plans within a 24 hour time period, it should be a method that is exercised. What would’ve happened if it had snowed? 2 inches of snow are just as large an inconvenience as a parade. Would you have then blamed the snow?
- As for “rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments,” I specifically said that there are far less apartments in lower Manhattan as there are in the rest of the island. I did specifically point out that your picture example was from an office, but you didn’t refer to that.
- Regarding your example where the only option to vote is from noon until 2pm: First off, that’s a pretty far fetched example. I’d pay money to meet a line cook who also works at Starbucks and then decides to use all that money to pay for a lower Manhattan apartment (which we’ve already stated that there are not very many of to begin with). Regardless, you’re right, that person should vote. Since you stated in one of your comments that “Work and school are events within your control and you are made aware of them well in advance”, then this person should’ve obviously planned in advance and voted via an absentee ballot. Problem solved.
- “Maybe I’m the only one who had very regimented grandparents who needed support to get to their polling places growing up.” I doubt that. However, while one set of my grandparents can still drive themselves to the poll site, the other set mails their absentee ballot out weeks in advance. They realize their physical limitations and plan ahead for them. In any case, neither of these sets of people lives in lower Manhattan. If they did, I’m sure they’d have a support system in place to either assist them with the absentee process or assist them to the polling place. Do your grandparents live in lower Manhattan?
- “As I said, one person disenfranchised at the hands of the city is one person too many when it comes to our nation’s most sacred democratic process. And I’m willing to bet a lot more than one person was disenfranchised by this mess.” Like I said, I agree with you. I’m sure there were people who were inconvenienced, but honestly, I don’t care. Everyone is inconvenienced by an election that is held on a weekday. To single out a small population that was inconvenienced by an event that only took a few hours is just silly.
Finally, I don’t want to sound like an ass to so I want to make a couple points very clear. #1: I respect you very much and I’m proud to call you a friend (both in real life and online). #2: I like debating with you because it’s fun and because I know you’re a nice guy. #3: I might be slightly intoxicated tonight.
February 7th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Lower Manhattan Resident says:Todd: Before you dedicate two paragraphs lambasting a comment I made, you might want to check what I actually wrote.
Me: I have no doubt at all that lower Manhattanites gave up their right to vote to avoid subjecting themselves to the pandemonium in their neighborhood.
You quoting me: all lower Manhattanites gave up their right to vote to avoid subjecting themselves to the pandemonium in their neighborhood.
You’re right. Suggesting all lower Manhattanites didn’t vote is absurd (almost as absurd as suggesting no elderly or phyiscally disabled people live in lower Manhattan). That’s why I didn’t suggest it. Also, per your absentee ballot argument–they had to be postmarked by January 29, way before the Giants won or the parade was announced. There was no way to anticipate the parade by voting via absentee.
Of course I’m not comparing a super bowl parade to violent suppression of voting rights, but I’m also not comparing a government’s inability to control militants with a government’s decision to hold a parade on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday. The inconvenience caused by the parade could have been easily avoided by holding the parade one day later. And if you don’t think violent scenes like this discouraged people from voting downtown, you’re out of your mind: http://www.amny.com/video/?slug=ny-spchaos0206wn
Eric: I might have had that bill for you, except this preseason (right after the Jets traded for Thomas Jones) I bet a c-note on the Jets doing better than the Giants this season. Unlike the decision to hold this parade on Super Tuesday, that one seemed like a good idea at the time.
December 25th, 2009 at 11:50 am
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January 31st, 2010 at 11:54 pm
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