The election season is entering it's final stage, with Primaries all around the City taking place on both sides of the aisle. What will be the key to winning in November? The best way to determine that is to follow the bouncing ball that is the Mayor's erratic campaign. In this piece from the Politiker, Jason Horowitz writes about the most important issue facing NYC's citywide candidates...
A year later, Mr. Weiner—who presented himself, convincingly, as a skinny, Brooklyn-bred, stickball-playing warrior for middle-class New Yorkers—was still hammering the same theme, telling reporters that New York City “seems controlled by the elite and the powerful.”
The message, that working people trying to raise families were having an inordinately hard time in Michael Bloomberg’s New York, was a potent one.
Then Mr. Weiner disappeared, taking with him all hope of forcing the mayor into a vigorous debate about middle-class issues.
....but he gives too much credit to Congressman Weiner for both bringing up these issues as well as potentially being the best candidate to represent them...
Mr. Thompson has pointed out, almost pleadingly, that the mayor’s attention to explicitly middle-class issues is a new development, but he has gained little traction. More remarkably, Mr. Thompson—son of a judge, born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, career public servant—has been unable to prevent the free-spending mayor from portraying himself as the middle-class candidate in the race.
At the moment, New Yorkers are watching a new campaign ad for Mr. Bloomberg currently in heavy rotation on seemingly every television channel, depicting a mayor who works for the “benefit of middle-class families” just like the one he comes from.
“The middle-class issue is clearly his greatest vulnerability,” said Jonathan Bowles, the director of the Center for an Urban Future and the co-author of the February study “Reviving the Middle Class Dream in NYC.” “You can grasp that just by looking at his campaign materials. He has become the middle-class candidate, which is kind of funny because he certainly hasn’t been the mayor of the middle class.”
...in my view, the campaign hasn't really started yet, so the obituaries being written about the City's Comptroller are quite premature.
Thompson, due to Campaign Finance Board rules, will only get about $10 million in public funds to be used against the Billionaire Mayor. As he can't spend dollar-for-dollar with Bloomberg, it serves little benefit to use these precious resources so early in the campaign cycle. Thompson will need to save these resources to make his pitch stick in October, which should be centered around the struggles facing NYC's middle-class.
Weiner's leaving the race may have taken the better of the two middle-class spokesman out of the Democratic Primary, but the issue is not owned by him and Thompson can not only make that issue his own, but can do so even with the massive ad campaigns Mayor Mike is putting out on the air-waves. And the best way to do that is NOT by running opposing television commercials, but by developing a massive grassroots, door-to-door campaign in the outer-boroughs.
Sure the "middle-class issue" has less power in Manhattan, where Bloomberg likes to operate, but even there it has value - remember that developments like Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village and Tudor City are all places where the middle-class resides and where their struggles are not much different than their outer-borough counterparts.
But in places like Middle Village and Glendale in Queens or Bay Ridge in Brooklyn, as well as scores of other outer-borough communities, the sales and property tax increases are starting to suffocate most average New Yorkers. The never-ending parking ticket blitz is frustrating regular citizens who a just trying to run errands for their families. The increase costs of public transportation are taking resources away from their needs in their homes. And the ever-shrnking job market is leaving many middle-class families without a weekly paycheck and health-coverage.
I don't agree with the sentiment in Mr. Horowitz's piece that this issue has, and will continue to, break in the Mayor's favor...
“His promises just fall on deaf ears with middle-class families here,” said Mr. Jones, who complained about the mayor’s increasing of property taxes and water bills. “He’s been rich for so long, he doesn’t understand us. He should give somebody else a shot, but I’m not crazy about Thompson.”
City Councilman Jimmy Oddo, marching a few feet behind the mayor, with a wooden baseball bat resting on his shoulder, said, “There was a lot of antipathy on Staten Island to his administration after the property tax votes. But look at him, when he comes here, he’s treated like a conquering hero.”
At the podium, Mr. Bloomberg praised the bored-looking young ballplayers. He stepped down and chatted with former Congressman Vito Fossella.
“He’s out here practically every three days,” Mr. Fossella said afterward.
Apparently, in this election, that’s good enough.
...I don't think this effort to get middle-class support will work, as long as Thompson puts forth a strategy to negate the ads and all the empty-promises being made by Bloomberg. Just like in the GOP, where Bloomberg has promised much and delivered nothing, he will again ignore the masses here in NYC and, once re-elected, will get back to his Manhattan-centric view of government.
The challenge for the Mayor's opponents is to put together that grass-roots effort and reach people like Mr. Jones, who was mentioned above. From his vantage point, the Mayor already has a record on middle-class issues and there is no way a few slick advertisements and appearances at parades will change his view. Thompson just needs to find a way to firmly connect with the millions of New Yorkers who already agree with Mr. Jones. It will not only put him on the right side of this important issue, it will also improve his image among the electorate at-large...
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written by Jay Golub , September 21, 2009
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/a...19993/1097
Thompson's first ads along with overall negative sentiment for the Mayor regarding taxes and over-turning term limits is starting to have its effect.
People keep thinking that Bloomberg is going to walk to victory this year, but those people aren't asking average New Yorkers what they think.
And these bad numbers are coming while the Mayor has already spent more to date then he did throughout the entire elective process in 2001.
This will be a close race, especially if the economy turns down again and if Bloomberg's present budget deficits expand because he intentionally dumbed-down the expenditure predictions for NYC...
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