Zohran Mamdani’s Flawless Mayoral Campaign, Cuomo’s PR Strategy: “I’m not perverted, I’m Italian,” and other Content Strategy Lessons

Bad content: Cuomo's bagel order is an English muffin. (His favorite borough is Westchester.)

What’s in this newsletter:

• Announcing Fempire & Fiction — what you’ll get in this Substack  

• Editor’s Notes: Content of the week, kicking off with Zohran Mamdani’s stellar grassroots campaign for New York City Mayor 

• Making a case for key messaging: "Don't Rank Cuomo"

• Updates: Back to school! I’m headed to The New School’s MFA Creative Writing Program 

• Required Reading (Daycare Edition): “Daddy Sandwich” — what it is and why I want it 

I’m pleased to share some news and launch my first SUBSTACK: Fempire and Fiction, about the fiction of business and the business of fiction. 

If you know me from my work at Why Women, some of you may already know I’m a professional writer and content marketer with a background in legacy media, where I spent more than a decade combined leading content at Condé Nast, TIME Inc. (before billionaire Marc Benioff of Salesforce fame bought the title publication—that’s a different newsletter), and my content agency Why Women consulting for private clients. I specialize in content strategy and copywriting, and I write fiction about sociopolitics and identity politics from the feminist gaze. In this newsletter, I’ll talk about messaging, marketing and storytelling in less expected places, starting with one of the first solid content strategies we’ve seen come out of the Democratic Party in a long stretch: state assembly member Zohran Mamdani’s campaign for New York City Mayor. 

EDITOR’S NOTES

We’re one week from Election Day for the Democratic primary in New York City’s five boroughs with early voting open now, and the Mamdani campaign team is at it again with a historic poll surge by an underdog candidate and another slate of strategic wins that make for perfectly timed press mentions. Here are some highlights that stood out:

TWO WEEKS TO ELECTION DAY

Takeaway: What your marketing could look like 2 weeks out

• Two to three weeks to the election, we saw a well-executed amplification of the key message “Don’t rank Cuomo” from Democrats, progressives and likely all over your timeline, if you’re reading this. When I work with clients, from Fortune 500s to founders and solo entrepreneurs, a note I’ve given often over the years is to narrow down to a single message and one, clear CTA. Their rankings may have differed just slightly, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Working Families Party, both progressive platforms for highly anticipated endorsements, each deployed the singular message and call to action not to rank Cuomo. The rest of the timeline—and the polling—appeared to be on the same page.

• Next, in an exciting turn of events on Wednesday, in one poll Mamdani—the District 36 assembly member in Queens who is running on a socialist Democratic platform—took the lead against top contender and mayoral-campaign arch nemesis Andrew Cuomo, the former disgraced New York state governor. (The source of the 35:31 percent lead in Mamdani’s favor was a poll conducted by Public Policy Polling for Democrat Justin Brannan’s city comptroller campaign.) In a tight race, things can always change, but the surge showed what a singular key message can do if consistently marketed.

• On Friday, mayoral competitors Zohran Mamdani and city comptroller Brad Lander joined forces and announced they would endorse each other in a combined effort to defeat Cuomo. Then Michael Blake joined a second cross-endorsement with Mamdani, positioning the latter two candidates as “sons of immigrants” who attended New York City schools. If “Don’t rank Cuomo” was how to deploy singular, clear messaging, then THIS is positioning strategy. Democratic opponents who can get on the same page, respectfully while vying for the same nomination? Unified. Refreshing. Three men who aren’t afraid to show civic, interparty leadership, support and cradle each other’s efforts in the name of democracy. We love to see it, bbgurl. It’s wholesome, it’s hot, it’s healthy masculinity. What more can I say? I’m ovulating for democracy. Well done to the Mamdani campaign’s marketing team as well as Lander’s and Blake’s.

ONE WEEK TO ELECTION DAY

Takeaway: How your campaign could shift 1 week out

UPDATE: Since my first draft of this letter on Friday, things are getting ugly in this mayoral race and have taken on a serious tone. (And I’m approaching my luteal phase.)

• Monday The New York Times all but endorsed Cuomo, after previously printing that the editorial board would not be making endorsements in this race. This stinks for journalism. It also read as an anti-endorsement of Mamdani and calculated shake-up after early voting was already three days underway. As a writer whose training and education is in journalism, I will always be devastated to say: media is marketing, marketing is media, and money talks: to the tune of the $5 million that former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg donated to a super PAC behind Cuomo’s campaign last week, after also endorsing Cuomo. For some reason (you can guess why), the editorial board waxed on in approval of Bloomberg while bashing Bill de Blasio, Bloomberg’s successor, as well as Mamdani. *End rant on why we need independent journalism.* Please consider subscribing to support this newsletter peeling back on how media and marketing really work in today’s world.

• Then today Bernie Sanders announced an endorsement of Zohran Mamdani.

• Shortly after that anticipated endorsement broke, ICE agents illegally arrested Brad Lander as he was escorting an immigrant out of the court, which Lander has been doing to protect immigrants at their case hearings. This too is strategic messaging. The takeaway here should terrify Americans in red and blue states alike as Donald Trump ramps up his “very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History."

Fempire & Fiction

Horrible things are happening in this country every day. And some good things, too. Here I’ll try to write about both, and offer a little levity with some humor when I’m not highlighting content for evil.

*palate cleanse*

In some personal news, I’m proud to share that in the last year of my ailing 30s, I am going back to school in the fall for The New School’s MFA Creative Writing program for Fiction to work on a book. My novel, “Culture Shocked,” is a multigenerational family saga about an Italian-American-Moroccan marriage that’s tested when the couple’s overbearing families clash and compete for whose traditions will be carried on. 

So I *feel like* I’m a little bit qualified to critique this particular Cuomo-Mamdani faceoff because I’m Italian, my dad isn’t famous like Andrew Cuomo’s, and my partner is Muslim. My cousin chat is called Pig Eyes because of old family lore that our nonno yelled at a kid for doing wheelies in the lawn, and the kid screamed back, “Fuck you, pig eyes!” If you’re not familiar with deep-set Sicilian eyes, think Steve Buscemi eyes and dark circles. Steve (who I once met at a party) is also Sicilian, so we’re cousins now. 

Proof of the famous family chat, Pig Eyes. 

A young Steve Buscemi. And/or, a simulation of my senior photo when the portrait studio airbrushed my dark circles out and my father went down to the studio in person to yell at them for erasing our heritage! Happy Father’s Day to my proud Italian dad. 

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I’m Italian.

I’m not suggesting #Horny4Zohran as an official campaign hashtag, but I am saying this campaign is working. Then again, if “Cuomosexuals,” the coinage for COVID-era Cuomo stans, aged like milk, dare we claim Zohran as our Mamdaddy? New Yorkers have it rough, and it would be nice if someone took care of us once in a while. We’ve been waiting for the bus for over 30 minutes, after all, and our baby has a poopy diaper. (Narrator: the bus never came, and I could have walked home in the 40 minutes I waited, except I couldn’t walk that far without full-body pain in my postpartum state.) Politicians are meant to serve us, their constituents, and that’s something Zohran understands. 

Aside from knowing his younger, very online target audience and building a social media campaign that hits, Zohran’s team also understands the overlooked assignment of capturing who your audience is NOT. To convert them—the would-be Cuomo voters who already have brand affinity for a known competitor—Mamdani’s campaign knocked on doors and sent hella mailers, which reinforced his brand for a younger, hipper audience segment, and established brand awareness for older or offline segments, like my son’s retirement-age babysitter who was planning to vote Cuomo because the name is recognizable and she had no idea who Mamdani is. The latter segment, as well as a third one too young to remember, could benefit from a reminder about Cuomo’s resignation as governor in 2021. 

Memory-lane time: Cuomo’s defense against the sexual harassment allegations of at least 13 women was—and you can’t make this up—“I’m not perverted, I’m just Italian.”

Listen, I’m Italian, and we’ve been using “I’m Italian” as an excuse for everything from an explanation for why everyone’s yelling to why our uncles kiss on the mouth. (Emotional. Damage.) But placing the blame for SA on being ancestrally depraved is not a good look. Cuomo made a bad name for himself, and then threw us Italians under the bus, and I’m here to tell you it’s time to sit this one out, my guy. You don’t want Uncle Tony running for office, trust me and the Pig Eyes chat, whose sole purpose at the family function is to keep him from saying something out-of-pocket. Uh oh, Uncle Tony is headed toward the microphone at a wedding during speeches. (“You can’t say that anymore, Uncle Tony.” *distracts him with a piece of gabagool*) 

Whew, I’m back. That was close.

On the other hand, in my husband’s Arab culture, uncles don’t kiss on the mouth, like normal people, and while I would consider that a perfectly healthy display of masculinity in someone else’s culture, I’m Catholicly obligated to be ashamed by my own, especially in front of the friend who never tried gabagool. (Note to therapist, I married the friend. Note to self, gabagool is not halal.)

Poll break: Do you like your capicola hot or sweet?

And while we’re at it, have you made a voting plan to rank democratic mayoral candidates in the June 24 primary or early voting, open now? As a business owner and mom who will have upcoming tuition bills for grad school, I’ll just leave the Working Families Party endorsements here. 

1. Zohran Mamdani

2. Brad Lander

3. Adrienne Adams 

4. Zellnor Myrie

5. We’re no longer ranking Jessica Ramos*, but a campaign volunteer for the Mamdani campaign told me they still recommend ranking a fifth candidate so Cuomo does not rank. She suggested Michael Blake. I also obtained this voter guide from a progressive parent group in Brooklyn.

(*Last week Ramos unexpectedly endorsed Cuomo. I asked the campaign volunteer I spoke to why, and she cited rumors Ramos had some hard feelings, but this is not confirmed. My guess would be hard feelings about endorsing Mamdani. Other theories might be she’s vying for a job with Cuomo’s team if he wins, or she’s being coerced or blackmailed into the endorsement. If I can get a source for any of these theories on background, I’ll post it in this Substack.)

Tattoo idea (temporary or permanent): “DO NOT RANK CUOMO” 

Another poll, if you’d please rank in the comments:

• Mamdaddy 

• Mamzaddy 

• Zaddy 

• Zaddy Mamdaddy 

• Zaddy Zohran

• (Submissions in comments)

I loved Zohran’s campaign from first meme and have been following it since. Come for the content, stay for the strategy. His social media posts for Eid look exactly like the ones my mother in law sends in the group WhatsApp. The animated GIF he posted on June 6 made me feel like I was with family. (My new one, not the one I’ve been trying to confiscate the microphone from.)

Genius campaign strategy and visuals from Zohran for Mayor team. My Moroccan mother-in-law sends a variation of this GIF to the family WhatsApp every year during Eid. 

I haven’t been this hopeful about a Democratic candidate since … (???) *crickets*

I’m so motivated, I’m ready to volunteer. Nevermind for what, that’s a private matter between me, Zohran and my husband. Yes, I have a type. Whoopsie, there we go again. I told you Italians shouldn’t run for office. 

What was I saying? Oh right. 

New York City needs a mayor with a backbone. A strong, fearless leader with the courage to speak up and take action. A father figure. Just Friday morning, my friend’s son looked at a campaign mailer of Zohran and called him Daddy. Me too, Felix. Me too. 

Journalist Liz Plank wrote in her Substack “Airplane Mode” about how now is the time for displays of the hot kind of masculinity: “the kind of masculinity that makes us feel something. … Because what’s hotter than a man who doesn’t wait to be asked to care?”

Also Friday morning, I received the following notification from my son’s daycare, asking for consent to make a “Daddy Sandwich,” just in time for Father’s Day. Say less. 

Required Reading from Daycare: “Daddy Sandwich.” I’ll take two. 

And now I’d like to address the allegations that Zohran is hiding secret children: Zohran, the two secret children you’ve been accused of are actually me, and my friend’s 2-year-old who thinks you’re his dad. You do bear a resemblance, to be fair (just a couple of 30-something bearded guys in Brooklyn). 

The days of Cuomosexuals are long since over. Andrew Cuomo had his turn as governor, and he cut Medicaid, indirectly wasted T-shirt fabric, directly wasted funds on vanity projects to color-code our subway instead of repairing it, sued for his accusers’ gynecological records, and has a track record of deeply concerning behavior toward women, along with other salient campaign points Zohran has delivered flawlessly in debates with both ferocity and serious professionalism. Step down, Cuomo. Let a young progressive do the job. It’s time for a voice for the people and a leader who doesn’t answer to billionaires behind super PACS. Don’t rank Cuomo. Mamdaddy’s home. (Cue Usher)

Zaddy’s home.

If you found this helpful or aligned with your values, consider subscribing or becoming a paid supporter of this Substack for breakdowns on what makes content marketing stick. Fempire & Fiction peels back the fiction of business, and the business of fiction, through a feminist lens.