Today is another historic day for Asian Americans in New York City.  With 99% of precincts reporting John Liu has pulled off a convincing victory over David Yassky with 56% of the vote.  The Democratic nomination in New York is almost a guarantee of winning the election in November, so given no unforeseen obstacles, John Liu is set to become the first Asian-American to hold citywide office in New York City.  He will serve as a counter to the mayor's office and will be tasked with the unenviable task of leading the city out of the economic recession.

Liu built his campaign with a broad coalition of NYC's minorities as well as organized labor.  Despite intensifying attacks by the local "press" and his opponent his campaign stayed mostly positive and focused on the issues at hand.  Predictably, the Daily News is complaining about the cost to hold the election rather than the actual winner of the election.  It cannot be stressed enough that this election was not determined just by Asians but by a broad spectrum of New Yorkers.  Local conservative media, of course have tried to distort this with thinly veiled racism.

Some Gems:

His campaign was buoyed by union support and a big push by Asian-Americans, who wanted to put one of their own in citywide office for the first time.

"One of their own?" really.

"He spent a lot of time with black voters. He tried to make himself a black candidate and was quite successful," said Hank Sheinkopf, a consultant who worked for fourth-place finisher David Weprin in the race for controller.

"The black candidate?"  I don't even want to know what that means.

Liu wants to use the fund to invest in "affordable housing" -- a field dominated by scandal-scarred housing giant ACORN, which is bolstered by unions and joined at the hip to the WFP. And with the power to OK contracts, he'd be able to hold up outlays that don't contain enough public-employee goodies.

I don't need to explain the stupidity of this gem from the NY Post do I?  OOOOOHHHHHH AFFORDABLE HOUSING SCARY.  LOWER PROPERTY VALUES FOR EVERYONE.  The following day, the NY Post actually followed up on the story and found that John Liu had no intention of investing pension funds in ACORN.  It is frequently the policy of the post to accuse first and clarify later.  Sad.

There are many more, but that's not important now.  Congratulations to John Liu and may he continue to work in the interests of all New Yorkers, as he has, for his entire career.