NYC'13: Congrats to Mayor de Blasio

[Benj]

Isn't Anthony Weiner going to run?

lol.


Christine Quinn is going to have this handed to her on a silver platter. None of the serious Democratic candidates will challenge her in a primary because they'd lose. She has all the institutional backing. Ray Kelly also won't run; he'd get demolished. Bloomberg and Giuliani were competitive because they could win the liberal white vote. Ray Kelly isn't remotely competitive in Park Slope or the Upper West Side, and Christine Quinn is a much better fit for those areas than previous Democratic candidates were.

[Benj]

Me too. Quinn would be a return to the failed Lindsay-Beame-Dinkins style leadership that led this city to the brink of destruction. What we need is a candidate in the Koch-Giuliani-Bloomberg tradition. (Hmm, I thought I made up "Koch-Giuliani-Bloomberg tradition")

I've always been fairly surprised as to how leadership quality isn't really a factor of party here in NYC.

Dear me! Koch as a good mayor? He was the worst of the worst, excellent at grandstanding while the city burned. Definitely worse even than Dinkins (who is given less credit than he deserves--crime started dropping on his watch, not Giuliani's) and not even remotely comparable to Giuliani and Bloomberg.

[Benj]

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).

Term limits is basically not an issue to anyone these days except as an excuse to hate Bloomberg.

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.

[Benj]

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

I don't think I can really buy into any ranking of them as more or less progressive than one another.

De Blasio has clearly managed to market himself as the most left-wing candidate, and perception is nine-tenths of reality in politics. I do think he is a much more genuinely left-wing guy than Liu or Thompson, who are mostly poseurs when they try to claim the left of the Democratic Party.

Liu is a totally non-ideological interest group politician who basically does what will get him elected (and that includes some pretty dodgy/unethical things for some more corrupt politicians and groups, which is really what sets him apart from Quinn rather than ideology).

Thompson has always struck me as a somewhat bumbling bureaucrat. He's not ideological in that sense, mostly just a career guy but not corrupt like Liu (and also not as slick as any of the other candidates). He's also certainly not a figure to be lionized as an heir to Dinkins' legacy (though I definitely think Dinkins is way underrated and Koch in particularly grossly overrated--largely for unpleasant racial reasons on both counts) and not really a viable mayor, so again I don't see him as occupying a clear ideological space. I think he'll end up like Virginia Fields in 2005, not even managing to control the black vote in the Democratic primary. He's only really considered viable because he was the nominee by default in 2009.

I largely view the Democratic primary as a clash of personalities and political styles rather than one of substance or focus on certain issues, though of course the candidates (or at least the non-Quinn candidates) would like it to be the other way around. Realistically, there isn't anything substantive they can point to as disagreement. The primaries will mostly be de Blasio and the others trying to claim Quinn is Bloomberg's handmaiden and trotting out a lot of Quinn-Bloomberg photo-ops. That does not an ideological divide make, just the perception of one.

For full disclosure, I actually worked on Bloomberg's campaign in 2009 (as a paid intern, when I was in college) and am still a fan, though otherwise a solid Democrat. I'm not convinced Bloomberg's blatant public distancing from Quinn of late isn't a tactic to help her in the Democratic primary, but I'm kind of distrustful of Quinn anyway. I like Lhota, but he has no real chance. I would definitely not support Kelly or Catsimatidis (though I can't vote anyway as I've moved to Jersey City and at the moment don't foresee moving back to NYC before the election, though it could happen).

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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.
[/quote]

Carrion would significantly upend the overall dynamics of the race, and I think it's hard to say how viable he would be. I agree that he would not play well in a lot of traditional Republican base areas, resulting at the least in middling turnout, but if he brought over the Bronx and the Hispanic vote (realistic--voting tends to be strongly ethnic in NYC when [mainstream] minority candidates are on the ballot) that might not matter. Probably depends to a degree on the Democratic candidate. Unlike the other Republican candidates, I think Carrion would do worse against de Blasio than against Quinn, again for somewhat unpleasant reasons.

I could see myself supporting Carrion perhaps.

[Benj]

But are these the major issues?

I think they are pretty important, actually. This is a local government election; people vote on local government issues, including such mundane stuff as transit policy and bike lanes, as well as other boring things like trash removal.

I mostly agree with traininthedistance, but I don't expect much on transit policy from anyone but Lhota anyway. Like he said, at least Quinn supports congestion pricing (which is a huge political issue in NYC).

[Benj]

Me too. Quinn would be a return to the failed Lindsay-Beame-Dinkins style leadership that led this city to the brink of destruction. What we need is a candidate in the Koch-Giuliani-Bloomberg tradition. (Hmm, I thought I made up "Koch-Giuliani-Bloomberg tradition")

I've always been fairly surprised as to how leadership quality isn't really a factor of party here in NYC.

Dear me! Koch as a good mayor? He was the worst of the worst, excellent at grandstanding while the city burned. Definitely worse even than Dinkins (who is given less credit than he deserves--crime started dropping on his watch, not Giuliani's) and not even remotely comparable to Giuliani and Bloomberg.

Koch saved the city from financial disaster.   En pace requiescat.

lol, no he didn't. Mayor Beame and President Ford saved the city from immediate financial disaster in 1975. When Beame left office in 1977, the city was running a $200M annual surplus (from a $1.5B annual deficit when Beame took office). Then inflation saved the city from longer term fiscal issues by inflating away the remaining debt. That was the primary good result of late-70s inflation: It gave a lot of municipalities facing enormous debt loads a new lease on fiscal life.

Ed Koch was great at taking credit for things and grandstanding. That's about it. Hopefully now that he's dead a while people stop feeling bad for pointing out what a terrible mayor he was.

[Benj]

Please, Beet, continue to enlighten us ignoramuses through your information about this election apparently solely derived from online commenters to the Daily News.

[Benj]

In huge news, Jimmy McMillan will be running as the Rent Is Too Damn High candidate.

I hereby endorse Jimmy McMillan. He's the most serious candidate of the bunch

I agree.

Quinn is seriously terrible though, she's an authoritarian liberal of the worst kind, and probably even worse than Bloomberg.  Hates unions, supports privatized education, racial profiling, civil liberties violations, soda bans, raising the smoking age (quite unconstitutional and absurdly controlling).

The G&L victory fund should really be ashamed of backing her so strongly, would think even as an LGBT political action group they would have enough of a head on their shoulders to realize a bad candidate when they see one, regardless of orientation.

The LGBT community itself seems to realize Quinn isn't that great, and her voters are probably going to be Republican leaning anyway.

Same with the Emily's list type of groups.. she's female but her policies are plain wrong.

I wouldn't say she hates unions.  The truth is that a lot of the unions in New York state are terrible and they're obviously self-interested.  A politician needs to clash with unions sometimes or else they're a complete hack.  

It will be interesting to see who the unions endorse in this race.  Some of the major unions have been known to endorse crazy people just for spite.  It's quite a political culture we have here in New York.  

John Liu, corrupt scum that he is, seems to have many of the unions lined up behind him. Quinn will get a few just because she is the favorite (certainly the ones that endorsed Bloomberg in 2009). De Blasio may get some as well, but Liu has to be a lot more appealing to most of the union leaders. Liu knows who pays his bills, but de Blasio is less predictable.

[Benj]

Quinn drops to 25%, Weiner is already second with 15%.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/new-york-city/release-detail?ReleaseID=1894

2013 looks to be the year when then wife-cheaters return ...

That's actually unchanged for Weiner since April.

Quinn: 25 (-3)
Weiner: 15 (nc)
de Blasio: 10 (-1)
Thompson: 10 (nc)
Liu: 6 (-3)
Albanese 2 (+2; previously not included)
Other/Won't Vote: 5 (+1)
Don't Know: 27 (+3)

Looks pretty MOE-y to me.


Also, 49% think Weiner should not run, to 38% who think he should. Even Ray Kelly has considerably more people who think he should run (45-38 yes)--somewhat surprised at how strong his approval rating is, actually, especially since stop-and-frisk polls poorly.

[Benj]

It will be a disaster if Weiner wins the mayoralty. He's all show and no substance, and you can't just coast on soundbites as mayor the way you can in Congress.

[Benj]

That's Joe Lhota, the former MTA Chairman and a Republican candidate. He does have something of a resemblance to Dr. Phil.