The New York Times made its
endorsement in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary race today. The editorial is a classic example of damning with faint praise and leaves little doubt, at least in this observer's mind, that the paper will be endorsing Mike Bloomberg in the fall. It's hard to see how the endorsee, Freddie Ferrer, will make hay from an endorsement that ends:
If Mr. Ferrer is going to be a decent candidate in the fall, he's going to have to start talking like the intelligent public servant he used to be. . . If we're going to make a leap of faith, we prefer to do it with Mr. Ferrer. He gets our endorsement in the Democratic primary.
But the bad news wasn't limited to Freddie Ferrer alone, the Times also did a number on the other Democratic candidates. Plus, in an
article a few days ago, they brought up the issue of how Bloomberg Democrats will vote in the primary.
So what's a voter to do? More on the flip.
Standard caution: The diarist is New York Democrat planning to vote for the Republican candidate in this year's mayoral race. The rest of my diaries on this race can be found here.
(Cross-posted, believe it or not, at RedState).
It its
endorsement, the Times first dismissed the candidacies of Anthony Weiner (". . .and his yelping style might make for an interesting fall. But Mr. Weiner seems intent on driving the campaign in the wrong direction" and C. Virginia Fields ("there is nothing in her long record of office-holding that suggests she would make a good mayor.")
It then identified its short list of candidates as Freddie Ferrer and Gifford Miller:
Gifford Miller, the City Council speaker, and Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president, are the strongest contenders, but their qualifications are very different. Mr. Miller has been more forceful in the current campaign, but then, inanimate objects have been as dynamic as Mr. Ferrer, who made a few gaffes early on and then retreated into a cocoon of sound bites. Both men have a wide understanding of the city's problems, but you would never know it from listening to Mr. Ferrer mechanically repeat the same meaningless catchphrases.
At this point, it's pretty natural to think that a surprise endorsement of Miller is in the works - something that might redefine the campaign. But no. After a few more negative words about Ferrer (bringing up the recent Times reports that purport to place him on the outer periphery of Bronx political corruption) the Times goes after Miller:
When it comes to experience, Mr. Miller has a generally good, if spotty, record in his current job.
. . .
Mr. Miller, who represents a district on the well-to-do East Side of Manhattan, has never had to navigate a political landscape that was nearly that perilous. This is the public's first chance to watch how well he can maintain his ethical standards under considerable financial pressure during a citywide campaign. He has flunked that test. He used $1.6 million in city funds that were supposed to support his constituent services to do a citywide mass mailing that was clearly a mayoral campaign expenditure. When caught, his aides claimed that the mailing had cost only about $37,000. Since then, he has attempted to do an end run around the city's reasonable caps on campaign spending.
Miller is my personal bête noir in this race, a budding corrupt politician with racial and NIMBY overtones. With access to one of the best public schools in the city (and we do have some good ones) he nevertheless is sending his children to a tony private school. I think the Times was too nice to him. So I won't be voting for him in the primary.
But who should I vote for? Several days ago, in an article entitled Bloomberg Democrats Are a Primary Force (first time I've ever been described as a "force"!) the paper brought up the issue of strategic voting for those roughly 50% of New York Democrats who would rather be voting, in the Democratic primary, for Bloomberg if they had the chance.
Some Democrats are opting for strategic voting to weaken the eventual Democratic nominee:
Robert Jaffe, deputy director of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, said that his organization, which has endorsed Mr. Bloomberg, is not seeking to influence the primary one way or another. But personally, he said, "I'm voting the perspective of wanting to weaken the Democratic nominee so the mayor has the easiest time of getting re-elected."
He's just not certain how. "You clearly want to force a runoff and to force the runoff with a person who can leave Freddy the most weakened," he said. "I'm not sure yet who that is."
One Bloomberg Democrat, Carl E. Podwoski, a retired energy executive who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, said he would probably vote for either Mr. Weiner or Mr. Miller, not only because they seem most qualified, but to deny Mr. Ferrer the 40 percent he needs to avoid a runoff. "I'm hoping the Democrats exhaust themselves, that their animosity level builds like it did in 2001," he said.
Ouch, that has to hurt. I have to say that this strategic voting to hurt the Democratic nominee is something that never occurred to me. My natural inclination would be to vote for C. Virginia Fields since I live in Harlem and her office has been helpful to my daughter's public school program (although other neighborhood residents tell stories of her office not being helpful on other issues). In doing so, however, I am well aware that I would be advancing the candidacy of someone seen to be perhaps the weakest opponent to Bloomberg. But, since she's the candidate I would likely vote for anyway, I would be comfortable with this decision.
But the Times brings up a couple of other options:
And Bloomberg Democrats have at least two other options: boycott the mayoral primary altogether or even write Mr. Bloomberg's name on the ballot.
Boycotting the primary is not something I'd consider - I pretty much always vote and I do want to send a message to the Democrats about the kind of candidate they should be nominating. But one way for me to send that message would be to write in Bloomberg. The Times goes to an interesting place to get a quote on this option.
William T. Cunningham, a senior adviser to the mayor, and a Democrat, said he would do just that. "I can't advise anybody to vote for the weakest opponent - that wouldn't be cricket," he said. "But you do have the option to write in a name if you don't like the four Democrats. If you're a Democrat and you really believe that you like Bloomberg and that's whom you're going to vote for in November, you have the right to write in his name, and that's a better option than not voting or urging people to vote for their second choice."
Hence to the poll: