This morning I got an e-mail from the Democratic Party urging me to give money to Fernando Ferrer in the NYC mayoral campaign. Then this afternoon I open up dKos and see Markos referring to "turncoats"... and other users employing much stronger language to describe those Democrats, like me, who are planning to vote for Bloomberg in the November election.
I'm going to try in this diary to set out my thinking, answer some of the criticisms that have been offered, and hopefully de-escalate what I see becoming a rather nasty internal fight here. To this end, I'll offer background on how Bloomberg got into office; his record in four years; and a few thoughts on his opponent.
Bloomberg, Rudy, Green and the 2001 Election
Despite his billions and his high name recognition, I didn't think there was any chance Michael Bloomberg could win the mayoralty four years ago. He had no obvious political home, switching his lifelong registration to Republican only and admittedly to avoid a crowded Democratic primary field. He had little public profile, aside from that of businessman and philanthropist. And he showed very little initial aptitude for politics, making numerous misstatements and mis-steps in his initial round of campaigning. He won the Republican nomination that year over Herman Badillo, himself a former Democrat, largely on his spending advantage and Badillo's own self-inflicted wounds incurred over decades in public life.
Bloomberg's dilemma, through the summer of 2001, was compounded by the fact that Rudy Giuliani was then exceedingly unpopular in New York City. The worsening economy showed just how little Rudy's policies had had to do with the (in any event very unevenly spread) prosperity the city had enjoyed through the late '90s; his tough-on-crime stance now seemed to manifest mostly in heightened racial tensions and serial instances of excessive-force policing, culminating in the Diallo and Dourismond shootings; and his personal antics--divorcing his wife and parading around his mistress while decrying "obscene art"--were a bad joke at best. Adding in the strength of the Democratic field, led by Public Advocate Mark Green, Bronx borough president Ferrer, and city comptroller Alan Hevesi, and a Democratic victory looked as close to a sure thing as you'd ever see in politics.
The 9/11 Effects
You know what happened next. Giuliani revised his entire legacy, and built a new national profile for himself, with his performance following the attack. His endorsement of Bloomberg suddenly meant something. And the fact that the attack occurred on primary day--forcing a revote two weeks later--changed the entire tenor of the campaign.
Ferrer won a plurality but didn't reach 40 percent. He and Green met in a runoff, and suddenly the party and city fell back into the nasty politics of racial polarization that had helped Giuliani win office in the first place. As usual, the self-promoting huckster Al Sharpton was in the middle of it; despite his long friendship with Green, he endorsed Ferrer, and campaign workers on both sides started fanning the flames. Green won the runoff; Ferrer, and the entire Bronx Democratic organization, essentially sat out the rest of the race.
Green worsened his own plight with some dumb statements during the shortened general election campaign, notably that he would have done as good or better a job as Giuliani. A final factor that shouldn't be overlooked: the Yankees reached the World Series, and it went seven games, drawing in a citywide audience. Bloomberg's unlimited financial resources allowed him to advertise heavily--with Giuliani as his surrogate--during those games. He finally won by a few thousand votes.
Me
I had personal and political reasons to hope that Bloomberg would lose in 2001. As a public policy researcher, I'd come into conflict with the Giuliani administration--at one point they tried to get me fired from my job--and I had several friends working for Green, whom I'd admired for his work as Public Advocate. I did some volunteering for Green during the campaign.
I also don't generally believe in governance by amateurs, egoists and dilletantes. The differences between success in business and successful governance have been elucidated by people much smarter than I; watching candidates and officeholders as diverse as Ross Perot, Jesse Ventura and Tom Golisano in national and state elections over the years have really turned me off from "outsiders" as trustees of the public interest. So I both deplored Bloomberg's candidacy and thought it extremely likely that he would fail in office.
Bloomberg in Office
Needless to say given the title of this diary, I was pleasantly surprised. Inheriting an enormous deficit as a result of Giuliani's giveaways to city unions and other self-promoting measures, which the attacks naturally exacerbated, Bloomberg began his mayoralty with a call for the wealthiest to sacrifice--and immediately earned the loathing of right-wing ideologues like the blowhards of the Manhattan Institute, which had been Rudy's policy shop of choice. He brought back Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who had started the crime decrease under the unfairly maligned Mayor David Dinkins.
Bloomberg took an approach to economic development and other areas of policymaking that was sharply at odds with Giuliani's philosophy of coddling corporations and cudgeling most everyone else. Bloomberg pledged to eliminate corporate welfare; he also eased some of his predecessor's unduly harsh practices as far as public assistance. He created the 311 system, which has made city government more responsive than ever to everyday citizen concerns and complaints.
And he took on the most intractable problem of the city: its failing public schools. He won control of the system from Albany and began to implement real reforms toward greater student and teacher accountability. This was a great way to make enemies, but he claimed he didn't care.
I haven't agreed with everything he's done. The Jets/Olympic Stadium was a terrible idea, and sharply at odds with his administration's usual practice of neighborhood-based development. And he's consistently disappointed me by not pushing back harder against his nominal co-partisans in Albany and Washington--where the City, for all that maudlin talk aimed its way after 9/11, is chronically and viciously screwed in budget-making. I know he saw the RNC last year as primarily a revenue-raiser (his speech there essentially consisted of "Enjoy New York--spend money!") but that didn't make it much easier to swallow having those fuckers exploiting our tragedy, which they'd helped enable.
Ferrer and the New York Democrats
But that's mostly style, and on the substance he's been solid, sometimes better. The choice is easier given Ferrer's totally unremarkable background and the general rot in the NYC/NYS Democratic Party. Freddy's a machine hack, an old protege of the corrupt Bronx Dem boss Stanley Friedman. As Boro President, he did little beyond cheerleading (no BEEP, as they're called, ever does much more); and he's never shown much conviction in a long career aspiring to higher office.
(To wit: I actually voted for Ferrer in 1997, when he ran on some ballot line against Giuliani and the pitiful special-pleader Democrat Ruth Messinger; at the time, he was presenting himself in a way not dissimilar from what Anthony Weiner tried to offer this year. Then in 2001, he was suddenly the candidate of minority resentment; this year, he's tried to be Mr. Bland. You tell me if this is much different from Bloomberg's change of registration.)
It bothers me on some level that NYC, this most Democratic of cities, is facing the prospect of 16 straight years under Republican mayors. But given the state of our local Democracy, I'm not sure this is a problem. Weiner--whom I supported in the primay, and would have considered strongly for the general--was right that we need to start thinking differently as NYC Democrats.
Where I live, in Brooklyn, is home to arguably the worst local machine of all; we have a Boss, Clarence Norman, who but for the color of his skin would have been perfectly at home in Tammany 100 years ago. He sells judgeships, and exploits race/class lines as ruthlessly as any Republican you can think of. A Ferrer mayoralty would put a number of Norman cronies--and cronies of every other little Tweed in our city--in positions of responsibility. Bloomberg, as a self-funding billionaire, has no such obligations.
Fuhgeddabaddit
I generally vote straight Working Families Party. Their focus on bread and butter issues appeals to me as a politics of substance, opposed to the usual nonsense of race and resentment. My hope is that they'll endorse Bloomberg, or at least not endorse Freddy. Failing that, I'm hoping he's managed to resuscitate the old Liberal line; the notion of pulling an elephant lever is repellent, and as a Jew I'm not much inclined to support Lenora Fulani's party.
But I'm ultimately voting the man, not the party. If we're forever criticizing the Republicans (and rightly so) for flying the Elephant above the Stars and Stripes, how then can we justify similarly elevating the Donkey--especially when the candidate is, by all appearances, a real ass?