Bill de Blasio (D) had a great night on Tuesday. Can't say the same for Christine Quinn and Anthony Weiner:
http://www.nydailynews.com/...
“I’ve apologized,” Weiner said at one point, meaning for his sexting and all the rest of it. “(Quinn) refuses to apologize for overturning the will of the people.”
Quinn, in her own best moment on a bad night for her, came back at him, saying, “I don’t think we need to be lectured by Anthony Weiner on what we need to apologize for.”
But if she did not apologize for gift-wrapping a third term for Bloomberg, she also never offered a coherent explanation for why she actually did it. And she never explained why if she thought Judge Shira Scheindlin’s ruling on stop-and-frisk was such a triumph for the city and the Constitution, why she still wanted to keep Ray Kelly on as police commissioner, not that he would want to work for any of them on that stage Tuesday night.
She is in trouble now, she did everything except hold up a sign saying that. Bill Thompson didn’t make any for himself, even though he didn’t say very much. John Liu? You just kept wondering why he was even there. Of course Weiner brought fun from the start when he wasn’t explaining away aspiring porn stars.
It is why he’s fighting a losing game now, why de Blasio is the one who is suddenly in the lead, de Blasio who carried himself like a winner Tuesday night, even though the next time around somebody running against him might ask what he has actually done as public advocate, always a big job in New York if not a sexy one.
He is the one who seemed to have the best command of the moment, of his narrative about how he wants to end “the tale of two cities,” meaning those who are wealthy in New York and those who are not; how his City Hall “will serve all five boroughs.”
Bill de Blasio can win this, you saw it on Tuesday night. Big guy at 6-feet-5, big night for him. Could have been that kind of night for Anthony Weiner, who wanted to talk about hockey gear but to the end has to keep talking about gear of another kind. - New York Daily News, 8/14/13
And de Blasio's supporters are riled up:
http://politicker.com/...
Supporters of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio gathered last night in the back room of an Upper West Side bar to cheer on their candidate in last night’s first televised broadcast debate, hours after the stunning news that he had unexpectedly shot to the top of the polls.
For a mayoral campaign that many had discounted as doomed just a few weeks ago, the atmosphere at the event was one of euphoria.
“It is truly an exciting moment and we really have turned a corner,” said City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, a loyal backer, speaking to the excited crowd gathered after the heated show-down.
“Bill’s not afraid to say to the wealthy, ‘We want some of your money,’” added State Senator Bill Perkins, drawing applause.
But the loudest cheers were reserved for the man of the hour, Mr. de Blasio, who stopped by after the debate, greeting his “lovable mob” with heartfelt thanks.
“It’s been a long, long journey, but the bottom line is the message is getting through. It’s getting through loud and clear!” Mr. de Blasio proclaimed to the group. He pointed to the poll results as vindication that “what we believe in, what we’re talking about for changing the city is what people want, what they need.”
“Let’s bring it home!” he concluded, as the crowd chanted “four more weeks!” “Alright, now enjoy your ale!” he said, dismissing them with a raised arm and flick of the wrist. - Politicker, 8/14/13
You can tell I'm pretty pumped about his campaign. Now he did well in the debate and his campaign is gaining serious momentum but now he's onto the next stage in this race:
http://www.newyorker.com/...
If de Blasio really wants to be mayor, and not just another summer story that fades away, his biggest challenge will be convincing New Yorkers, and not just Democrats, that he has what it takes to manage the city. Despite his recent surge, he still has to answer convincingly the question that Quinn repeatedly threw at him last night: What did he achieve in his eight years in the City Council, and his three years as Public Advocate, that supports the idea he could successfully run the whole shebang? Open-minded and ready for a change from Bloomberg many New Yorkers may be, but they aren’t apt to trust their seething metropolis to a novice. Setting aside Bloomberg, who had created a multibillion-dollar media company when he ran for mayor, in 2001, they haven’t elected anybody with as little executive experience as de Blasio since they voted for Ed Koch, in 1977. And Koch had served eight years in Congress.. (As George Packer wrote in his Daily Comment yesterday, there’s also the question of whether well-off New Yorkers, who’ve fared well under Bloomberg, will be comfortable with the idea of going back to the days of a liberal mayor.)
On de Blasio’s first full day as the market leader, it is far too early to judge how he will respond to these challenges. Even if he performs well, success is far from guaranteed. Quinn, with much of the Democratic establishment still backing her, isn’t finished yet. Neither is Thompson, who also has a wide range of support, and who is slowly but steadily climbing in the polls. But for now, at least, the big fellow is the man with the message, the momentum, and the mojo. - The New Yorker, 8/14/13
And Mattew Yglesias is happy to see people excited but wants us to calm down for a minute and doesn't want us to raise our expectations too high about the extent of de Blasio's power as Mayor:
http://www.slate.com/...
There are lots of things New York and other high-demand cities could do to improve the lives of the nonwealthy, starting with the construction of more plentiful housing and continued efforts to improve the quality of local schools. But realistically these things aren’t going to make a dent in local inequality. If anything, more affordable housing will make your city’s inequality statistics look worse by importing more people of modest means rather than pushing them into Jersey City. Conversely, even under the most utopian scenarios, de Blasio’s signature proposals around universal preschool couldn’t possibly move the inequality needle for decades, not until today’s infants join the city workforce.
Mostly mayors have to deal with a lot of boring stuff: the workaday business of trying to deliver cost-effective public services. Fiorella LaGuardia famously said that there’s no Democratic and no Republican way to pick up the garbage. That was smart politics from a Republican running in a heavily Democratic city, but it’s also more or less true. At a minimum, better local government services aren’t going to spark a nationwide political revolution. They’re also not going to cut the princes of Wall Street down to size. Tackling big national issues requires national political mobilization. The real embarrassment of progressive New York is that for 20 years the local Democratic Party hasn’t managed to persuade a heavily Democratic city that its officials can pick up the garbage. Proving them wrong by electing a mayor who does a great job of that would be a sign of something. But raising unrealistic expectations that city government can tackle fundamental questions of social justice is at best a recipe for disappointment. - Slate, 8/14/13
Now I have mixed feelings about Yglesias as a writer but I felt his argument deserved a little spotlight and you should give it a read as well. I'd be interested in hearing what you think. I will say that it's still incredibly important that we have de Blasio elected. He really does speak for the people and it would be a huge success for progressives to continue to shake up the system. Plus de Blasio reminded us this isn't the first time he's made a come back late in the game:
Something good, he said, reminiscent of his 2009 race for public advocate, when he surged from behind late in the game, after even supporters thought he was toast.
“It was like this,” he said. “In those final weeks, just something caught fire and something really started to change on the ground. And we’re feeling that now.” - Politicker, 8/14/13
It's still early in the race but I'm ready to move on to the next stage and I am sure all of are as well.
So de Blasio has the momentum and now he has to get ready for voters to really know him. The Washington Post released a list of the top 5 things to know about de Blasio today and here are the three facts that stuck out for me:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
2. De Blasio managed Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign. De Blasio was Clinton’s campaign manager during her first bid for the upper chamber. Know who else worked on the campaign? Howard Wolfson, now a top aide to Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I). As public advocate, the position to which he was elected in 2009, de Blasio’s role is to be a city government watchdog of sorts. And that’s meant that he hasn’t been shy about criticizing Bloomberg’s policies. “Bill is a friend,” Wolfson told National Journal. “But he has set forth a vision for the city that is very explicit — higher taxes, bigger government, more regulation, more mandates on business, and in my opinion we tried that model and it failed.”
3. He changed his name. De Blasio was born Warren Wilhelm. His father fought in World War II and his parents split up early in his life. De Blasio said his dad was in a “downward spiral” when he returned to the U.S., and he was raised by his mother’s family, leading him to adopt their last name. “I started by putting the name into my diploma. Then, I hyphenated it legally when I finished NYU. And then more and more, I realized that was the right identity,” de Blasio told Public Radio Exchange. What about Warren? De Blasio said he’s always been called “Bill.”
4. He boasts some celebrity support. Alec Baldwin backs him. So do Sarah Jessica Parker and Cynthia Nixon of “Sex and the City” fame. - Washington Post, 8/14/13
If you want to donate or get involved with de Blasio's campaign, you can do so here:
http://www.billdeblasio.com/