NYC Question: How come in an 80 percent Dem city, a Dem candidate can't

be found that can win the Mayor's office?

Shouldn't this be some kind of priority for the Democratic Party?

Seriously, what's up with that?

...on that question.

I have NO idea how that asshat won a second term. Even the poll workers at my percent said "Looks like that bloomys gonna win again :shrug:" There was no voter turn out. I think part of the problem was that the ludicrous poll that bloomberg was going to win by 35% or so. People just stayed home after that.

just gets me mad and frustrated :grr:

Dem voters? A pretty decent candidate without billions should be able to win there, no? You should only need halfassed turnout among Dem voters, right?

Isn't New York full of bright, capable, personable, Spitzer like Dems who could run for and win that office? What's going on?

Other poster had a good point about Mass. and its Repub governors too...

and Bloomberg has more appeal to NYers then Ferrer did. Sure, Ferrer appealed to the "minorities" but all those folks unsure of what to do saw commercials here of Democrats like Ed Kotch saying "vote for the RINO."
Also, in re: the money, there was NO Ferrer campaign. I saw 1, ONE! friggin commercial of his, and hundreds of bloombergs. We saw NO ideas from Ferrer the way we did from Bloomberg, and, unfortunately, it caused a lot of dems to jump ship here. A good friend of mine, who I am now in a fight with, voted for bloomberg :grr::puke: im still in shock from that one. But she did it cause she said she saw no ideas from Ferrer. :nuke:

Candidates have to make their way through the machine--the result are people like Ferrer and Mark Green--a local version of Bob Dole or Walter Mondale.

but lived close for a long time so I'll take a stab at this. The dems in the city are a fractious bunch, there's a lot of infighting among various groups. Ferrer has wanted to be mayor for years now, it's a seniority sort of thing. They kill each other in the primaries and then it's usually a matter of dems getting other dems to support them, lots of hard feelings. Ferrer didn't really have a lot of viable ideas. Best I can do at explaining this. Mark Green would have likely have won in '01 but then 9-11 came along and Ghouliani backed Bloomie and he got in. Bloomie was a dem who switched.

Bloomberg won the 2001 election for a second time tonight. Chalk it up to the luxury of having such dominance over the city government, with or without Gracie Mansion, that people can act in real life like we act on DU ("POLL: Would you vote for X if s/he were the Dem nominee").

The margin of his victory is no doubt reliant upon money and crying wolf in the subway, but there you have it.

:(

against $10,000,000.00 by Ferrer.

but from a screen printer's POV, what a great boost to the local economy. Local political campaigns create local jobs. Keep spending it Bloomie.

until his first run for mayor. The DEMS wouldn't nominate him so he switched parties. Since he's taken office he's keep his distance from BushCo.

Bloomberg has been a decent mayor and the people of NY like him. He's a regular NYer who rides the subway, refused to live in Gracie Mansion, and still has a listed phone number. He's accessible. Plus, in person he's very nice. My mom, a lifelong liberal DEM, has met both Guiliani and Bloomberg a number of times and she has nothing but good things to say about Bloomie.

Bloomberg won because he deserved to win and the DEMS couldn't get a candidate that's worth a damn to run against him.

AND LOCKED US OUT OF OUR OWN TOWN. He gave $12MM to the Repub convention. He gives tons of money to other repub candidates nationwide. He's scum.

can turn down a major convention like that. There's too much money that gets pumped into the local economy from these events. It would be political suicide for any mayor to do such a thing. It's sort of like turning down the Olympics.


Neither would Boston have ever dreamed of turning down the DEMS.

due to the unprecedented security required by the Crawford Coward and falsely justified by the FAKE terror alert they generated the week before (Citicorp building).

Bloomberg "handed over the city" to the POTUS for a national convention that sold out 90% of the hotel rooms in the city, almost 100% on Manhattan, created millions of hours of union work, and doubled the overtime for cops. If the republicans want to come back to NYC next election, I would welcome them with open arms. That was great. Everyone of my brothers and cousins (all cops and skilled laborers) got massive overtime work from that event.

As for his support of national republicans, sure, he has donated over $300,000 to republicans over the last 8 years, and he gave almost the exact same amount (actually $9,800 more) to national and local democrats, including his biggest local political opponent.

My friends got arrested.

I was at the convention protesting each and every day. I have two close friends that were arrested as well. I applaud their act of civil disobedience, which was a protest not just of the convention, but also of what they saw as oppressive rules regarding free speech. I applaud their efforts. I'm not sure what your friends were arrested for, but if it was for similar acts of civil disobedience, I applaud their efforts as well. With regard to my two friends, I am their lawyer and am happy to report that the charges against them were dismissed.

Despite the arrests at the convention, I believe Bloomberg has done a wonderful job as mayor and I welcome four more years from a man who is more progressive than any mayor we have ever had. Far more progressive than Koch or Dinkins.

Is the convention your only problem with Bloomberg?
If that is it, I will just have to disagree with you that it is enough to have me not vote for him. I have already told you of the benefits I think came from the convention.

The convention needs to take place somewhere, and I think the benefits it brings far outweigh the costs. That is, unless you don't believe there should even be a republican convention and a republican party. Did you protest the convention to oppose the bush administration or the existence of a republican convention and a republican party? When I was protesting at the convention, I was not protesting that there was a convention or a republican party, but I was protesting the acts of a bad administration. I love that there is an opposing party with a convention. I love that it was close to my home because it made for a very convenient forum for me to express my disagreement and get national press coverage of my opinion.

This guy is a liberal/progressive on all major social issues. In a "red state" to defeat him one would only need to bring out his support of gay rights, including giving benefits to same sex couples who register civil unions and openly calling for recognition of gay marriage in NYC. This guy is a RINO. He has done significant good work in NY, despite being hamstrung by a crap economy. He raised taxes, which is a great example of how in tough times if we dig deeper and let a strong central government use tax dollars to help the economy, it works. Employment is up in NYC despite it being down in the country. The employment that is going up are union jobs, like construction, teachers and hotel workers. He is tough on workers, but only because we all need to dig deep in tough times. He passes taxes onto the to rich in a higher percentage than onto the poor. The biggest increase were through real estate tax, which he knows middle class homeowners get to partially recoup in federal tax deductions. If we had a republican president like him, or if his platform was the republican party platform, I may have to change parties (then I would not need to, because it would match the democrats platform and we would only have one national party). NY republicans are usually not well liked by "red staters" which is why Rudy G can never run for president. Once red staters find out he is pro-choice and supports gay rights he would never get elected, let alone win a primary.

and the city council is still a Dem stronghold.

I no longer live in the city but in Westchester Co. (a northern suburb) and saw the non-race Ferrer ran in regard to tv commercials. I hardly saw one. He didn't have any of the money that he needed to compete with Bloomberg on tv, and get his message across. Whereas, Bloomberg was plastered all over the place. His message was always positive (although school vouchers made me want to barf) and I think NYers were sold him again, way too easily.

Ferrer is an uninspiring dingbat who doesn't give the impression he'd do a good job. And he sided with the cops in the Amadou Diallo shooting.

Also, Bloomberg is generally perceived as having done a very good job of helping the city recover from 911 and Bush's economy--crime rates have continued to fall even with economic troubles, etc etc.

He also benefited from not getting his way on the damn West Side Stadium debacle.

something left over from Rudi Guliani (and 9/11 maybe. Anyone in NYCDems carried out an analysis who voted and where?

He just runs on a republican ticket. In any other city except maybe Boston, he would be a Democrat. He is a RINO if there ever was one. Many NY republicans are liberal on social issues and want a big city government. He is progressine on issues like choice, gay marriage and affirmative action. He had the support of many local unions, a majority of the public school teachers, the fireman and police unions and most importantly for me, my family's union. The NY Archdiocese (catholic church) did not endorse him, which is as good a sign as I need that he is the man for the job.

He is fixing a horrible public school system and not pressing for vouchers, though he has asked for a pilot program to satisfy the hardcore conservatives in NY. Most repukes think that vouchers are the means to solve all school problems. Instead he wants to reform public education from within. He took over the school management and put his office in charge of it. I like this. I'm always for a strong central government directly answerable to the people.

I consider these all to be liberal/progressive positions. He attacks the police force when there is evidence of abuse of authority. True he wants to reduce taxes, cut spending and give tax incentives to big businesses, but I am not opposed to any of those things as long as they don't weaken social services in an overcrowded city. Overcrowding is less of an issue with the massive redevelopment of Harlem's 125th street and the beautiful affordable housing project he is pushing forward, albeit too slowly.

His biggest fault is his trust of big business and that he supports national republicans, but no national republican is going to win a senate seat in NY and NY will not vote for a republican president who is anti-choice, so I'm okay with this. All in all, he is more progressive than many democrats in other states.

But at least we have a Democratic government across the board.

but most of my friends who I asked if they voted (many did vote for Bloomberg.... all are democrats) said that "Bloomberg isn't really a republican" and "Ferrer seemed too weak to handle running the city".

Bloomberg has done some good in the city without the showboating that Guilliani did (his impact on the schools has been very positive). He has also done some very stupid things (like the west side stadium idea). I don't think the average New Yorker associates Bloomberg as being republican (and we had many ads on TV from Ferrer of Bloomberg and Bush together)

I don't know, but I thought I'd share what my friends who voted for Bloomberg said

He seems like somebody who would just be phoning it in and resting on his laurels because he's been in the running for so long, he would feel that he deserved it. Most people don't see him as the type to fight for anything.

What New York City needs is a strong Independent party - the Dems in this city are too corrupt, uninspired and ineffective.

issues -- i.e. crime rate going down on his watch, a lessening of racial tensions in the city (as opposed to the Guiliani reign) -- more order and development in the city--

I know of various "progressives" who secretly voted for him because of these things

The man literally bought off a lot of groups out there as well

It IS sad that we couldn't underscore how he did Bush's business with hemming in the anti-war expression at 2 Major junctions: 1) the first big anti Iraq war demo here in NY-- where he FORBADE a march, closed off many streets, empowered the police to use excessive force/bullying tactics -- and basically tried everything to undermine it and
2) during the RNC-- allowed 2500 to be illegally detained in horrible conditions (Guantanimo on the Bay) --in order to remove opposition to the RNC from the eyes of the world --

These were not minor things, but he got away with it -- Ferrer was not a strong opponent too

compelling reason why he should replace him.

I live in NYC, and it's very questionable the city would be better off with Ferrer replacing Bloomberg. There are always two main issues in New York: crime and education. On both, things have been getting better under Bloomberg (they might have done that also under a Dem, but we don't know).

The city under Bloomberg is fiscally sound, despite having to deal with a bush economy (Giuliani made his career off a Clinton economy; if he had been stuck with a bush economy, he would have ended up being run out of town.) There was a lot of moaning when Bloomberg raised taxes early in his term, but what a difference from the criminal bush tax cuts.

Bloomberg's biggest negative was his attempt to build a football stadium/Olympic stadium on Manhattan's west side. What a fiasco that would have been--a billion dollars of tax money for a huge elephant of a football stadium for people from the suburbs to sit in ten days a year watching football, and built right in time for a global economic crisis and the end of cheap oil. The thing would have been obsolete before construction was finished.

I could never vote for someone with an R next to their name in the current political climate, so I did not vote for Mayor. The Dems need to learn that just because people agree with you on most of the issues does not mean they will elect a leader--be it mayor or President--simply because of their position papers. Bloomberg isn't charismatic, but he is a competent manager, seems to usually act in what he truly believes is in the city's best interest, and he seems like he would handle a crisis well. In some ways, he is an anti-bush.

I don't like everything Bloomberg does, but I could certainly say the same thing about President Clinton, and I'd be happy as hell to have him back in the Oval Office.

Schools are getting back on track, the new transportation bond act passed so the roads and subways might actually get repaired, he's moved more money into the arts (although only to large-scale institutions/artists) and he's actually tried to balance the budget.

That said, there are a few good things about Bloomberg that NY'ers recognize.

We could do a lot worse than Bloomberg, but we could also do a lot better.

But I think the main reason he won is that many liberal/progressives like me voted for him because he is very progressive. I know we can do better, but if I were to design a candidate, she/he would end up being more similar to Bloomberg than to Green or Freddie. Its tough to vote against this guy because other than the stadium issue, Weiner and the liberal led counsel rarely disagreed with him. He raised taxes to get through a tough economic time (which obviously worked better than bushco's tax cuts during a tough economic time). He works well with dems because he still is a dem, just on paper he is a republican. He is doing a fine job and until someone better comes along (and I want Weiner to stay where he is because he is leading the best counsel we have ever had) I will keep voting for him. We need more progressive republicans like Bloomberg.

Most of which have been well covered by now. Bloomberg operates a major publishing operation here. The Daily News ran favorable articles about him just about every day for months, and when it did report on Ferrer, the articles were small, negative, and dismissive. The Post is even worse, and those tabloids are widely read (if not widely trusted).

Ferrer evidently learned no lessons from his losing bid in 2001 (when he lost the primary to Green). He is a terrible candidate, meek, respectable, boring, safe.

But I think low voter turnout probably trumps all. I had been pretty much out of politics through the 80s until 1992, and then more and more so as the Clinton years became more and more bizarre. Of a group of friends who used to be very active, virtually none of them voted yesterday. (I did.) They are burned out fighting for schools, communities and better environmental standards in the City.

No excuses offered here. But the local dems I know are picking their battles these days, and this one looked like a loser from the git-go.

:shrug:

Bloomberg is a natural Dem. But for whatever reason he became a Repub because he has some kind of characteristics where he couldn't get through the Dem primary system, otherwise he'd run, and win, as a Dem? What are those characteristics?

And people are saying that he is a good mayor, then it is a loss for the Democratic Party that he would have to leave it to successfully become mayor. Because like it or not, he DOES provide support to Bush as a Repub mayor of NYC.

So isn't this a problem that might be examined?

NYC is very ethnic. There are very few Democrats who always will give strong support to the party's candidate regardless of ethnicity. Instead, there are Hispanic Democrats, Black Democrats, and various factions of white ethnic Democrats. Past Democratic candidates like Mark Green appealed to the white ethnics in crudely racial ways, splitting the party irretrievably. Democratic primaries are now so fratricidal that disappointed Democratic factions don't turn out for the general election with much enthusiasm, and those who do show up often vote "liberal" Republican.