http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/20/nyregion/20kerrey.html?After Brief Flirtation, Kerrey Decides Not to Run for Mayor
By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: April 20, 2005
Abandoning a brief flirtation with a run for mayor, former United States Senator Bob Kerrey said late yesterday that he had decided against seeking the city's highest office and would continue as president of the New School University instead.
"I'm not running for the mayor of New York City," Mr. Kerrey said in a statement released late yesterday afternoon, adding, "Nor do I intend to be a candidate."
Mr. Kerrey's statements came three days after he said in an interview that he was seriously considering entering the campaign because he was displeased with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's efforts to extract financial support for the city from Washington.
Mr. Kerrey's public ruminations included some of the most pointed criticisms of the mayor so far this campaign season. But they also seemed to be an implicit critique of the Democratic field of candidates, the relative strength of which some top Democrats have disparaged in recent weeks.
And by making his deliberations public, Mr. Kerrey effectively froze in place the Democratic primary as the various campaigns set about recalculating a race that could include a candidate of national stature who once ran for president.
Though the deliberations were short-lived, they will not soon be forgotten. Mr. Kerrey had provided some of the oddest moments of the mayoral campaign so far, with "contradictory musings" that his former hometown newspaper, The Omaha World-Herald, called "classic Bob Kerrey." (On NY1 News last night, he discussed with the host, Dominic Carter, whether he was "flaky.")
Mr. Kerrey himself said during an interview yesterday, "I traveled a long and winding road from highly unlikely to no in the last three days."
His dalliance with municipal politics started with an interview with The New York Times on Saturday in which he said that while he was not inclined to run, "I am just crazy enough to do this."
In an interview later that day, Mr. Kerrey acknowledged that he had told Mr. Bloomberg roughly a week earlier that he would head a campaign committee called "Democrats for Bloomberg."
Mr. Kerrey, a Vietnam veteran, served on Mr. Bloomberg's 2001 transition team and recently praised the mayor at a New School
event by likening him to former Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia and saying, "We are grateful for his leadership."
Even as he said during the interview on Saturday that Mr. Bloomberg had spent too much time fighting for a West Side stadium and not enough fighting for the city's fair share in Washington, he also called him gutsy and praised his handling of race relations and the city schools. Such statements could reasonably find their way into a campaign commercial for Mr. Bloomberg.
The mayor spoke of the Kerrey affair publicly for the first time yesterday, saying, "He couldn't have said more complimentary things about trying to make this city better."
And detailing his earlier contacts with Mr. Kerrey, the mayor said: "The senator called and asked could he help, and a few weeks later I did ask him would he be interested in running Democrats for Bloomberg.
"He, without wasting two seconds, said, 'I'd love to do it,' " the mayor added. "That was the extent of our conversation."
Continuing the strangeness, Mr. Bloomberg's aides said yesterday that he would still gladly accept Mr. Kerrey's support, adding, "He's certainly served with distinction in Vietnam, he served with distinction in Washington."
But, asked if he would come around to supporting the mayor, Mr. Kerrey said, "I think it's extremely unlikely, in part because his people made a decision to talk about my conversation with him about chairing Democrats for Bloomberg."
Mr. Kerrey said members of the New School board of governors - who recently extended his contract through 2011 - were more displeased that he had agreed to head a Bloomberg group than about his musings on running for mayor.
"It should not come as a surprise to the mayor that I have board members who are far more upset by that prospect than the prospect that I might run for mayor," he said. "We have a very progressive institution and there's a number of my trustees who feel very strongly in favor of other candidates and think it's not appropriate for me to engage in city races."
Indeed, one New School board member, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he said he did not want to get on the wrong side of Mr. Kerrey, expressed displeasure with his public musings, saying they risked putting the school on the wrong side of whoever wins City Hall in the fall.
Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said that any campaign by Mr. Kerrey would have been especially tough because he has no roots here.
"What's his base? A bunch of New School undergrads and grad students for crying out loud?" Mr. Carroll asked. "This guy, maybe he was a pretty big deal out there in Nebraska, but this ain't Nebraska."
And though his potential candidacy had clearly excited some Democrats in the city, there was no clear groundswell of calls for him to enter the race - perhaps because he had potentially undercut his candidacy with positive comments about the mayor.
My prediction on this whole deal is probably the same as before.
Bloomberg wins by about 4-5 points, probably over Freddy Ferrer, who will end up angering the black vote (as the Puerto Ricans and the blacks always seem to do to each other) so that they won't show up.
