I'm not very familiar with Quinn's politics, but other than supporting Bloomberg's plan to extend term limits, what about her do NYC liberals not like?
Her pragmatism. Her tenure running the Council leads many to believe as Mayor she wouldn't be a progressive hero like the other Dems.
There's a flip side to it, too. A lot of the pragmatic liberals and centrists who voted for Obama but like Bloomberg are suspicious that Quinn is more in bed with certain special interests (notably the rent regulation crowd, but also some of the more problematic unions, etc.). There's just suspicion on both sides, and in my mind properly as Quinn has never really staked out a strong ideological position on most issues. She's very much a politician. But that also makes her difficult to oppose, both in a primary (because she's never really taken a stand against any major left-wing interest group that would give someone like Bill de Blasio traction) and in the general (because she's not obviously offensive to various centrist voters, and also the center-right options are bad candidates for various reasons).
Would you agree with this ranking in terms of who's the most progressive candidate?:
1. de Blasio
2. Liu
3. Thompson
4. Quinn
Anyway, strongly disagree that Ray Kelly is the strongest Republican candidate. I actually think he's the weakest, weaker even than Catsimatidis. Strong policing is not a viable basis for a political campaign in NYC any more, and the liberal love-fest for the police under Giuliani has quite completely disappeared. Ray Kelly is a very good candidate for Staten Island, southern Brooklyn, Howard Beach, Whitestone and Country Club (and as a result I think he'd romp home in the Republican primary if he ran). But it's been a decades since the white conservative vote was enough to win city-wide, and Kelly has basically no hope of breaking into any minority voting bloc or into white liberals. Bloomberg and Giuliani were winning in places like the Upper West Side, Chelsea, and Park Slope. I can't imagine Kelly even breaking 40% in any of those places, except against Liu (who is very weak as a candidate but also has no real chance to win the nomination), while I can see those places continuing to break ranks for a technocrat like Lhota or even a businessman like Catsimatidis if their campaigns ran very well.
Do you think Carrion would be the strongest GOP candidate or would he drive too many Republicans to vote third-party or not vote at all?
FWIW, I don't see Carrion getting it. Just curious.
