Did Thompson run a campaign that could have won?
A couple of things were obvious during the long slog to today's Bloomberg "win." To have Thompson come so close is astounding and the closeness given the spending is almost being painted like a loss by the TV press. 5 points. Here are two emails that rolled in on ICE mail:
A couple of things were obvious during the long slog to today's Bloomberg "win." To have Thompson come so close is astounding and the closeness given the spending is almost being painted like a loss by the TV press. 5 points. Here are two emails that rolled in on ICE mail:
So from a position of weakness; not endorsing Thompson, we end up with a Bloomberg win by less than fifty thousand votes. Nice move UFT, excellent strategy to stay on the sidelines.
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Remember when [UFT Legislative Rep] Egan said that [at the Oct. DA] UFT endorsement would mean only a 3 pt.bump for Thompson?
I always questioned whether Thompson was running for mayor this year or in 2013. The catalogue of incompetencies in the campaign seemed astounding. He seemed to amble through, husbanding his resources and the UFT non-endorsement of one of their long-time buddies almost seemed like a plan. "You're still our candidate for mayor. Just not this year."
The NY Times had an interesting article on the campaign, with this dig at Thompson:
Many always thought that Anthony Weiner could have won and today it is clear he could have. But no guts, no glory as he backed off at the first sound of unfriendly fire out of the Bloomberg camp.
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Remember when [UFT Legislative Rep] Egan said that [at the Oct. DA] UFT endorsement would mean only a 3 pt.bump for Thompson?
The NY Times had an interesting article on the campaign, with this dig at Thompson:
Three weeks before the election, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani made an appearance with Mr. Bloomberg before a group of Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn.
Whatever message they had hoped to convey was drowned out by Mr. Giuliani’s speech, in which he suggested the city could not afford to return to the bad days before 1993, when the city’s first black mayor reigned, adding, “And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Mr. Bloomberg, who had prided himself on lowering the city’s racial temperature, was furious. The mayor’s advisers recognized the statement could become a nightmare if Mr. Thompson’s campaign exploited it deftly.
Mr. Thompson’s advisers pleaded with him to seize the opening.
“I talked to the Thompson campaign and said, ‘This is the decisive moment, it may be the best opportunity to change the race,’ ” a Democratic leader said. But Mr. Thompson refused to make a big fuss about the statement. He addressed it only in passing, relying on surrogates to take on the mayor. The Bloomberg campaign braced itself. But the storm never came.
When Weiner shows up at our doors in 3 years to announce he is running for mayor, give him the boot for his "no guts, not glory" philosophy.In many ways, what the campaign was selling was a charade. Inside the campaign, pollsters and consultants fretted over surveys that showed New Yorkers angry over term limits, anguished over the economy and eager for change. Mr. Bloomberg’s re-election numbers were alarmingly low for a two-term incumbent. <> Mr. Tusk started to hold daily meetings about how to knock Mr. Weiner out of the race, unleashing a two-pronged attack: making on-the-record statements belittling his record and encouraging embarrassing articles in the New York dailies. Negative articles began appearing, the most colorful of which purported to show that Mr. Weiner had skipped votes in Congress to play hockey in Manhattan. Despite angry denunciations of what he called a smear campaign, the congressman slowly lost his will to take on the mayor.
On May 26 Mr. Weiner announced he would not run, and Mr. Tusk and Mr. Wolfson held a celebratory dinner at Peter Luger’s, splitting an $85 porterhouse steak.
Yesterday I heard on the news that Michael Bloomberg had spent about $100 million on his campaign.
ReplyDeleteWith a net worth of $16 billion (the most recent Forbes figure, making him world billionaire #17), the amount of money Bloomberg spent on his campaign was the equivalent of $312.50 to someone with a net worth of $50,000. In other words, it was a chunk, but not all that much -- relatively speaking of course.
I'm so sorry that the campaign finance laws of this country are permitting the wealth of this person to rule NYC. I'll keep my fingers crossed that more and more New Yorkers give him absolute hell for the next four years!
The election results demonstrate the moral and political bankruptcy of the Unity Caucus, and particularly Randi Weingarten.
ReplyDeleteShe was in many ways the chief enabler of Bloomberg's weak victory. Had she fought the overriding of term limits, had she exposed the fraud of Bloomberg's and Klein's educational regime, had she endorsed Thompson (admittedly, far from a perfect candidate), the entire political climate in the city might be perched on the edge of movement and change, and the axe might be a little further from teacher's necks. Instead, she took the craven route of sucking up to power.
Well, movement and change is going to happen regardless. Bloomberg's popularity and political support has been shown to be a Potemkin Village. If their is any validity to the Third Term Curse, then he is likely to soon become the most hated man in NYC.
It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.