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

This week, The Daily Orange Opinion section brought on one of our liberal columnists Nick Turner to discuss his column “Downstate divide evident in primary”

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.

WEIS: Hello everyone, I’m your host and co-producer Allison Weis and welcome to The Daily Orange’s opinion podcast You Op To Know. Tonight we have liberal columnist Nick Turner on the show to discuss his column “Downstate divide evident in primary”. Welcome Nick!

TURNER: Thank you for having me.

WEIS: So how did you get involved in the Daily Orange, and why did you want to write the liberal column?

TURNER: So basically, I’ve always been interested in politics. I would say more so interested in politics than writing, rather than the other way around. I have always wanted a voice to make arguments. Freshmen year actually, I started a blog to write about politics that I don’t think anyone actually ever read, I kind of just wrote it for my own pleasure. I guess just enjoyed the process of researching a topic and exploring different arguments behind it. So it seemed like a natural fit. It’s been very rewarding so far

WEIS: Why’d you choose to write this column specifically?

TURNER: So the primary this year I felt was a very contentious one, even more so than the results indicated. I think me, and everyone who watched the debate, kinda just didn’t hear much about Upstate New York. There were so many issues covered in that debate, even sports game language doesn’t really affect too many people in the state. There was not too much mentioned about Upstate New York, so I feel like that was an issue for voters around here.

WEIS: What is the “Upstate New York” border to you? So I come from Westchester, I say it’s above Poughkeepsie, but Long Islanders sometimes classify Westchester as Upstate New York. So first, to get this out of the way, what is “Upstate New York”?

TURNER: So I come from Western Massachusetts actually, it’s right near the Massachusetts, New York border. I would classify the same thing you did right there, if you were to draw the line from the northern border of Pennsylvania and keep draw draw it across New York, I think that would be the Upstate New York border. I think it’s a very contentious issue.

WEIS: Definitely. Why do you think it’s so hard to classify “Upstate New York”? Is there an expert consensus? Is it even important to figure out the exact border of Upstate New York?

TURNER: So I think there are many different ways to define a border. I think depending on which definition you go with you’ll get a much different answer. For the purposes of this column the political, for lack of a better term, border would be right where New York City ends. So if you’re going with that, it ends there. If you’re going geographically would be a different answer. Politically, it’s important to kind of find where the state divides. I think candidates use that to strategize their campaigns.

WEIS: Is it okay if candidates cater to “downstate” New Yorkers as still, 43% of New York State residents live in NYC and face similar issues? And do you really think they will cater to them?

TURNER: I think it makes a lot of sense for candidates to cater to New York. Logically, and what I argue, New York City should received half the attention because it has like half the population but you have to factor in media outlets. If a candidate was to base their campaign around New York City, their campaign going to be broadcasted to the entire country. That’s how Upstate voters will get it through that. I think that divide exists in more than one way too. If you are in New York City you will see results that tend to go more democratic and I think if in Upstate you will see more republican voters. For a democratic primary it’s probably smart to strategize around city and apply it upstate when you need to. But I  think there is a lot of potential to use upstate more in their campaigns. I think if u send a clear message like access to affordable healthcare people in up will want to hear that just as much people in downstate New York. It’s going to apply to them too.

WEIS: It is still the other half the population.

TURNER: Exactly, yeah so I think if there’s more effort from candidates to promote their message upstate I think they would see dividends that would resonate through the state.

WEIS: Now that Nixon was beaten out by Cuomo in the primary, do you think this is a good or bad thing for Upstate New Yorkers?

TURNER: I don’t think really there is too much evidence that would indicate that Nixon winning would create more attention for upstate. I guess an argument could be made that her policies might benefit Upstate NY voters more but i think in terms of attention it’s kind of hard to draw that line. Going back to the upstate border debate, she defined the border to be somewhere around Ithaca so I mean I’ll let the listeners make their own opinion on that. I mean there’s not much indication that Nixon winning would’ve been better for Upstate voters.

WEIS: Was there anything talked about during the primaries that Nixon or Cuomo were even talking about Upstate New York?

TURNER: I think for the most part both candidates tried to apply their message a little bit to Upstate. I think Nixon did come out with a position on I-81 and she’s in favor of the community grid. Just saying that, I don’t think that’s enough to justify not spending enough time in Upstate. I think if you’re going to make a message to Upstate it’s got to be based on your normal message not just catered to issues central to places like  Syracuse or Central New York.

WEIS: Thank you so much for joining us this week Nick!

TURNER: Thank you for having me. It was great to be on.

WEIS: Stay tuned for next week’s podcast where we will begin discussing some 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!

Published on September 19, 2018 at 10:07 pm

Contact Allison: alweis@syr.edu