Will the last person to leave the Porterfield campaign please turn out the lights?

Last night's Democratic Mayoral debate between incumbent Gary McCarthy and City Council President Marion Porterfield was not for the faint of heart.

It wasn't that Porterfield's performance could be described as erratic and exasperated.  It wasn't that the substance of her answers was often puzzling, leaving one to wonder what reason her ostensibly left-wing base would have to vote.  And it wasn't that the audience indicated her campaign might be significantly lacking in organizational fortitude.

It was all of the above.

A jumbled opening statement, in contrast to McCarthy's planned and clearly rehearsed intro, was followed by an equally confusing punt on the issue of migrant bussing from New York City.  Within 5 minutes, the supposed candidate of the left found herself doing nothing to differentiate herself from McCarthy's position on the issue dominating news for the past week, her response merely being a less coherent version of the same substance.

Just one question in, and it was clear that Porterfield was on her back foot, to put it lightly.  What followed can only be characterized by a parade of blunders, with her high point being a platitude-filled response on the relatively intangible and non-urgent issue of increasing citizen participation in government.  In less than an hour, she, in chronological order:

• Nearly lost her breath while offering a rambling defense of her inflighting-plagued tenure as Council President, which in substance amounted to "I tried"
• Built and fed herself into a buzzsaw, in a way unseen since Dan Quayle compared herself to JFK - please clear the room of children and anyone with a heart condition before watching either - by pointing to her pre-Council tenure as the City's Weed & Seed program coordinator as an example of how she would improve public safety.  Whispers could be heard in the audience as soon as the word "seed" cleared her lips, as those with long memories eagerly awaited McCarthy pointing out the essential facts of the matter: as coordinator, Porterfield willfully violated federal Department of Justice rules, ignoring three years of warnings, and the City was kicked out of the program because she was either unable or unwilling to fill out basic DOJ paperwork for a third of a decade.  And the cherry on top?  Data showed that crime increased in the City during her time in charge of Weed & Seed.
• As the supposed left-wing challenger, responded to a subsequent question about last week's homicides by seemingly coming out in support of Rudy Giuliani's aggressive, "broken windows" approach to policing petty offenses
• Came out, in a Democratic primary where she needs to win big amongst both young voters and the left, far to the right of McCarthy on marijuana, not only highlighting her opposition to allowing marijuana businesses in the City, but dramatically saying that the existing MWBE-operated marijuana small business on Union Street is bad for families.  This small business was opened within a football field of the busy, outdoor drinking-friendly City Squire, Holiday Wine & Liquor, two tobacco-based smoke shops, Ink Oasis Tattoo, and a very healthy McDonalds.  Let's not act like it's 24-hour dispensary in the Sistine Chapel.  
• In what seemed to be a fit of pique, lashed out at McCarthy's suggestion - in response to a question from the Times Union's Paul Nelson regarding what the City's most undervalued resource was - that the City would benefit greatly and attract new residents in the coming decades due to its vast supply of water and position atop the Great Flats Aquifer, which contrasts to well known and widely reported issues, exacerbated by climate change, facing the Southwest and other regions.  Porterfield, who apparently moonlighted as a climate scientist when she was too busy to complete Weed & Seed forms, responded to the Mayor's thoughtful and forward-thinking answer by saying that she was "not sure [water] is what people think of when they move someplace." Is she ignorant, a climate change denier, or both?

To summarize, the ostensibly progressive, WFP-backed challenger in a Democratic primary in a blue city in the bluest state, came out strongly against marijuana, for a crackdown on petty crime, mocked climate change, offered zero support for asylum seekers, and highlighted instances of her own incompetence, which ranged from breaking Department of Justice rules to breaking the City Council.

Is Porterfield giving anyone, her base included, an actual reason to support her?  Watch that debate in a vacuum, with no clue - if only we could all be so lucky - about the toxic, race-based claims of pure progressivism and specious-at-best claims of racism made by the Porterfield - Williams - Farley council bloc against fellow Democrats over the last two years, and Porterfield comes across as the right wing candidate, both on policy and in tone.

This all begs the question: who's advising Porterfield, and who ran her debate prep?

Even before the candidates took the stage, there were signs within the auditorium that it would be a long night for Porterfield.  During the lead up yesterday afternoon, some establishment Democrats were texting each other concerned that a motivated left flank would crowd the auditorium.  In the end, only a smattering of the approximately 100 attendees appeared supportive of Porterfield.  

More staggeringly, none of the city or county's Porterfield-backing elected officials were spotted, not even her City Council bloc or Niskayuna's Jaime Puccioni and Michelle Ostrelich, who as one former Democratic committeewoman observed in a post-debate email, called Porterfield a "mentor" who is "what the city needs right now."  Contrast that with McCarthy, who was being roundly applauded by three councilmen and at least two of the city's county legislators.

Has her council colleague Carl Williams given up on Porterfield's campaign, instead hoping voters blame her for Council dysfunction and give him a pass?  Have Professor Puccioni and Ostrelich retreated to their ivory towers in Niskayuna, instead concerned with the woke Professor's uphill battle in a Conservative Party primary against a career military officer, and two-time-loser Ostrelich's general election against affable and qualified opposition?

In any event, last night Marion Porterfield was on her own, without support, and Gary McCarthy was running laps around her.  To any Democratic primary voter watching, the choice was obvious: it's time for four more years.