What a humiliation: Gov. Kathy Hochul opted to take the stage at Sunday’s rally for Zohran Mamdani — and wound up serving as the warm-up act for socialist icons Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, except even that blew up in her face.
The crowd greeted her with boos, jeers and taunts of “Tax the rich,” and all the governor could do was grin and bear it.
It got so bad that Mamdani had to take the stage to rescue her, grabbing her hand, throwing their joined arms upward and walking her off to applause — for him.
She tried to pass off the humiliation on Monday with a joke: “I thought they were saying, ‘Let’s Go Bills,’” she claimed. (Shades of “Let’s go, Brandon”!)
She wanted to “harvest all that [energy],” an again-grinning Hochul told reporters, “to be on the same team and to make sure we can do a lot of great things for the people of this state.”
What she wants is for that energy to not be turned against her in next year’s Democratic primary, and for those jeering young socialists and progressives to show up for her in the November election.
Sadder still, she’s pretending that Mamdani hasn’t yet endorsed her for re-election because she hasn’t asked him yet, when he plainly expects to make her work for it: Most of his tax-hiking, big-spending agenda is toast if he can’t get the state to do his bidding.
He made it obvious last month after she endorsed him, when he pointedly declined to return the favor.
The 10,000 screaming socialists in Queens on Sunday have little use for sweaty regular Democrats trying to clamber aboard the Mamdani bandwagon.
But what use will she be for anyone else at this point?
She’s held on so far as a centrist who’s somewhat restrained the raging progressives who dominate the Legislature; New Yorkers who fear Mamdani’s agenda have been hoping she’ll refuse to play ball if he wins next Tuesday.
The gov plays her cards very close; we’ll hold out some hope that her happy face on Monday was a pose.
Hochul should take the Forest Hills rally to heart: These radicals aren’t her friends, and the silent majority wants her to stand up to them.
If Mamdani wins, don’t give him what he wants — he’ll never return the favor.