As regular readers of this department realize, I've not been a big fan of the Mayor, but both they and I might be hard pressed to say why.
In listening to the Mayor's potential opponents, I've yet to find many issues where I think they are right and the Mayor is wrong. My problem with mayoral_control_of_the_schools is not the idea but its implementation, which seems designed to thwart the accountability which is ostensibly its goal. At any rate, it is no surprise that the Mayor's opponents share The Mayor's desire not to diminish the powers of the Mayor's office, even as they seek to change its occupant. When it comes to who Bloomberg's opponents want to control our schools, the difference among the candidates are worth considerably less than a stick of gum.
But even on issues where the Mayor's opponents disagree with him, it is rare that they are in the right. Take congestion_pricing; there can be no doubt that the Mayor's plan was flawed and the efforts to pass it were the products of self-absorbed megalomaniacal delusions, but the Mayor's opponents do not want a better plan, nor do they want a better strategy for its passage—they just want to kill the idea dead, which hardly seems an improvement.
Likewise their property tax related problems with His Honor. The Mayor's opponents are right that the Mayor had no legal right to try to kill last year's shameless and unnecessary effort to put back in homeowners' pockets money the city had just recently picked from them, which it once didn't need, but now did. And the hew and cry over the recently passed property tax increase was little more than sound and fury signifying very little. As someone who pays the damned thing, like most homeowners, through my mortgage, I can tell you that the cost is a barely discernible annoyance, while the tax itself is one of the City's few bargains (check out rates in the burbs). At any rate, the tax is one of the few the City can raise without coming to Albany, cup in hand. And given the Mayor's success rate there, who can blame him for avoiding that?
Moreover, none of the Mayor's opponents seems ready to make any of the cuts which would be necessary if we had to forgo this tax—in fact, they seem committed to quite the opposite (this might actually be a point where my position is closer to theirs, if they were willing to credibly explain where they would get the money instead).
Then there is term limits, which I happen to oppose, and which, if implemented at the Congressional level (a proposition which would clearly win a national referendum, if Congress would allow one—where does Mr. Weiner stand?), would put one of thee Mayor's challengers out of a job. Frankly, while what recently occurred at City Hall looks pretty sordid, is is really more important than what a candidate would do about schools or crime? I don't know about you, but I have more important things to worry about.
So why don't I like the Mayor. Many reasons, but they all add up to one.
What bothers me about the Mayor is the unusual magnitude of his megalomania, even when compared to the likes of Mr. Weiner. We are talking here about a level of self righteousness comparable only to the likes of a Spitzer or Giuliani. Mike Bloomberg believes that he is an Uberman, and that therefore, the rules governing mere mortals do not apply to him. As such, the standards of common decency normally enforced by the likes of the NY Times and Daily News editorial boards are overlooked because we are now answering to a higher authority.
One of the rules the Times and News normally apply to mere mortals is that politicians should avoid trying to help re-elect themselves by giving away funds from the public till to worthless programs. In fact, they should not even give money to worthwhile programs if doing so would inure to their benefit at the ballot box (take that, Vito Lopez). Another rule is that politicians should not associate with racist or anti-Semitic extremists (take that, Charles Barron).
And yet, not only has the Mayor done this with impunity, but news comes that he is about to do it again. On Thursday, both the Village Voice and the Times ran stories detailing the Mayor's efforts to once again buy the support of the repugnant Fred Newman/Leonora Fulani cult of bigoted psychotics, which controls the City's Independence Party, so he'd have a line to run on in this year's Mayoral race. It is bad enough that the Mayor proposes to put even more of his private fortune into the pockets of pedophilic merchants of hate and mind-control induced slavery; what is worse is that the Mayor's past track record indicates he will put our money in their pockets as well. Despite the Mayor's aversion to publicly financed elections, the Newman/Fulani cult is the one area where the Mayor's implemented the concept of matching funds.
In 2006, I documented the sorry tale of the Independence Party, the Newman/Fulani cult, and the craven efforts of politicians to buy their support. I do not exempt the Democrats from this charge, but the big three were George Pataki, Joe Bruno and Mike Bloomberg. Up until this week, I considered these tales ancient history, but it is clearly time to retell them, so I implore all of you to read the entire series linked below, which are collectively entitled the “Fuck the Independence Party” Series:
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/the_independence_party_is_neither.html
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/joe_dreck.html
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/the_aristocrats_with_thanks_to_penn_jillette.html
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/drecky_rides_again.html
http://www.r8ny.com/blog/gatemouth/joe_douek_must_resign.htm
gatemouth/gatemouth_joins_the_times_editorial_board.html