Despite his (literally) lordly stature, he doesn’t rise even to the putz level.
As de Blasio hold a campaign-style, government-funded rally at Trump Tower, he says now is not the time to talk about his presidential ambitions
— Dana Rubinstein (@danarubinstein) May 13, 2019
His NYC subjects are sceptical! NYMag:
All that mayor of New York and presidential hopeful Bill de Blasio wanted to do on Monday was to travel by SUV caravan to a home of the current president and lambaste him for the steep emissions emanating from his buildings. But de Blasio’s conference at Trump Tower was derailed when a group of protesters counterprogrammed the mayor’s eight-minute speech by playing surprisingly loud music in the lobby, chanting “you suck” (the jack-of-all-trades of heckling phrases), and holding signs that read “Trump 2020” and “Worst Mayor Ever.”
It shouldn’t be surprising that the event was inundated with protesters, considering that three out of four New Yorkers don’t want the mayor to run for president and he held the speech at the historic capital of Trump World. But de Blasio held his ground: “This is a public space where people are allowed to express their views. In New York City, we’re perfectly tough. If people want to offer their opposition, it doesn’t change me one bit.”
On paper, de Blasio’s speech was meant to promote the NYC Green New Deal and publicize a City Council bill passed in April requiring buildings larger than 25,000 square feet to cut emissions. De Blasio, who has yet to sign the bill, said it’s a symbol of the city’s intention to hold all landlords accountable, “even the president of the United States.”…
Against all evidence, de Blasio remains convinced that, if the White House is to be occupied by a “brash, big-picture” New Yorker, it should be him — no matter what all those timid timeservers in his own inner circle may say behind his back. From the Atlantic, last week:
Multiple people close to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio gave up trying to talk him out of running for president earlier this year. Now he’s reportedly going to try to win Iowa and New Hampshire without most of his friends—or even people on his payroll—supporting him…
“Everyone has an honest assessment of his flaws, except, maybe, for him,” said one current New York City Council member who wanted to remain nameless to avoid upsetting work with the administration. But de Blasio, who started his career as a political operative and ran Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign before winning a New York City Council seat in Brooklyn in 2001, has never lost a race—and was written off at the outset every time. Now he’s watched Buttigieg, the mayor of a city that’s a fraction (of a fraction) of New York’s size, become a phenomenon. Based on conversations I had with people who have spoken with him, de Blasio thinks that it should be him. He also thinks Buttigieg’s surprise surge proves that it could be him. If Democrats want a mayor evangelizing progressivism, de Blasio’s right here. De Blasio has always seen politics as more about the campaigning and less about the gritty work of governing, people who like him and people who dislike him agree. He may not be an operative anymore, but he still thinks like one…
To be fair, if the NYC media I read is any indicator, de Blasio was angling for a Presidential run even as he began his campaign for Mayor. Because that worked so well for John Lindsay, back in 1972. As I’ve said before, I’d have a little more respect for de Blasio if he went full Lindsay and switched parties before his big announcement, but this is about self-promotion, not achieving anything useful.
The NYTimes, under the header “A Mayor Walks Into Trump Tower. A Circus Follows”:
… But the news conference also showed how the mayor’s interest in running for higher office may derive, at least in part, from a desire to escape the persistent interest of local media in probing the minutiae of his mayoral management.
The mayor was asked about an ethics panel inquiry last year into his fund-raising practices, which he has repeatedly refused to acknowledge. He ducked the question again.
And he was asked, for the second week in a row, about a 2015 fender bender involving his official vehicle, which went unreported at the time. An article in The Daily News on Monday said that the mayor’s S.U.V. had crossed over into the opposite flow of traffic on 135th Street at the time of the crash.
Mr. de Blasio ducked again, saying that he was waiting for the Police Department to tell him if the incident was handled properly. (A copy of the police report included the preliminary finding that the mayor’s police driver was “at fault for driving counter flo.”)
Finally the mayor finished and left through the back of the building. His protesters took the equivalent of a victory lap, up and down the escalators (though in fairness it was a draw), and then marched out of the building’s Fifth Avenue doors, exiting under a huge American flag that hangs there. They refused to speak to reporters…
Protesters on the right, riding escalator. Note the loud music pic.twitter.com/LfWFpbI9Ve
— Yoav Gonen (@yoavgonen) May 13, 2019
NotMax
Height does not equal depth.
She’s no longer working a Mel’s Diner and saying “Kiss mah grits!” a lot?
West of the Rockies
Maybe the Big Apple mayor will outstrip Schultz in the Least Likely to Succeed in Convincing Anyone of Their Grandeur competition.
Waynski
He’s always been a bloviating idiot. We seem to grow a lot of them in this part of the country.
Ruckus
Oh goodie. Another egomaniac whose actual self is several order of magnitudes less than he thinks it is. When does egomaniacal old white man get listed in the DSM as an actual disease?
NotMax
Just for fun.
Beulah Bondi shakin’ her stuff doing the Big Apple.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Is he a bad mayor?
If so, how?
I only ask because Chris Hayes as argued that he’s a good mayor because the city is running well and de blasio did pass his campaign promises.
Now, I realize the subway sucks, but it’s Cuomo who appointed a … wait for it… a republican to run it.
Amir Khalid
Where is Bill de Blasio right now in nationwide polls? It seems to me that a mayor of New York City can’t really count on being known outside his home state. I remember that another NYC mayor, Rudy Something, tried running for POTUS on the attention that came his way in the wake of a national security incident, and somehow sank without trace.
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid: Negative something.something%?
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Somewhere to the south of Baud.
;)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid:
I believe it’s Rudy 9-11.
Plato
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Yup, I don’t understand either the hatred here for popular dems like Biden, Deblasio et.al. Didn’t Deblasio sweep all NY counties in the last mayoral election? One can disagree with their policies, styles etc. but meaningless bile and venom thrown at them is plain dumb.
--bd
@Plato: Burroughs?
Kay
I don’t know anything about DeBlasio but in general I think Democrats don’t promote their mayors enough. It’s an executive position and large cities are bigger than some whole states. If Republicans had mayors of cities that large they would leverage it better, they’d be strutting around saying “NYC is bigger than North Dakota, and North Dakota has 2 senators!”
If the city is over 500k I think they should be on the same political footing as the governor of a smaller state. DeBlasio has way more constituents than the governor of Vermont, a bigger budget, and a more complex and difficult job, yet no one would look askance at the governor of a smaller state running for president.
If Democrats have more mayors of medium sized and big cities than Republicans do and they marginalize mayors and box them in as “not national” then they’re shooting themselves in the foot. Rural areas are wildly overrepresented in the US Senate. Talking about large city mayors as a potential national political “bench” would even that up a little and elevate more Democrats.
daveNYC
@–bd: Technically they’re both.
@Kay: They should, but with the urban/rural divide I can see why Democrats focus more on holders of statewide office. NYC mayor is it’s own mess since The Onion’s 9/11 article: “Rest Of Country Temporarily Feels Deep Affection For New York” is a good summation of now NYC plays countrywide.
germy
johnnybuck
@Plato: The vitriol does seem a little strong, you’d almost think the guy was a regular Bernie Sanders!
different-church-lady
Mayor of largest city in the country: deluded nobody.
Mayor of sub-300th populous mid-western city: dreamboat!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@different-church-lady: it get worse when you see the usual suspects rave about the former mayor of town that literally ranks #905 in population and has less then 1/2 of 1 percent of the population of NYC (the town he fled from during the 60s white flight).
But her emails!!!
1. I think a lot of people have internalized the real America vs faux America BS even Democrats and liberals. Hence, the mayor of New York as the leader of greatest faux American city gets a special level of vitriol unless cleansed of the faux America scent by virtue of being a Republican.
2. De Blasio doesn’t really seem to have done any real work preparing for a national run. He’s the mayor of New York, he could have been setting this up for the last 2 years, but his launch is far feebler than that of the mayor of South Bend and comes at a time that’s really late for this primary. It gives the impression that he didn’t really take this seriously and is only getting in because fuck it, if the mayor of South Bend can run, so can I. If he wanted to be President, he needed to start courting national media attention more than a year ago, and declared his candidacy early.
PJ
@different-church-lady: I saw somewhere that a lot of these “what are they thinking?” candidates are running because of Buttigieg – if this guy who, relatively speaking, has accomplished next to nothing politically (or otherwise) and can’t even get elected to head the DNC, let alone a statewide position, is getting all this love from the press, why shouldn’t they throw their hat in?
PJ
@But her emails!!!: De Blasio has been thinking about running since at least 2016, when he campaigned “for Hillary” in Iowa, knocking on people’s doors when he could have been dealing with problem in the city. But he’s never gotten any traction because he’s been so mediocre as a mayor and he’s arrogant to boot. (Some charm is necessary for a Democrat, not so much for a Republican.)
PJ
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: He’s mediocre. Getting universal pre-K passed was the one good thing he did at the start of his first term, but by most other metrics, he’s been a bust. Though he ran for office to the left, in office he has pushed policies not so different from Bloomberg’s. Lack of affordable housing is a real problem, but for De Blasio, the only solution is more luxury housing (the real estate industry is one of his biggest supporters). NYCHA buildings are in terrible disrepair (no heat in winter, sewage backing up into apts, etc.) and he wants to give their open land (or the buildings themselves) to developers to put up luxury towers. He is also just not around much of the time, as he has been traveling around the country (and abroad) since his first term, trying to build up support for a Presidential run. He is also just not good at politics. Cuomo is an asshole, but De Blasio knew that he would have to deal with him if he wanted money for the MTA and the city, and has only antagonized him. They both have tremendous egos and a shortage of charm, and I’d say they deserve each other, except that it’s citizens who get shortchanged by their relationship.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@PJ: Thanks. This is a good rebuttal to Chris Hayes’ point of view.
Anne Laurie
@Kay: You have a point, but this deBlasio dude gives me 70s flashbacks, and not in a happy sense. I was open to Bloomberg jumping in — although I understand why he didn’t, that’s why he’s a billionaire — but during his NYC campaigns, Mike acted like a guy who actually wanted to be a mayor, not just someone looking for a springboard to a ‘better’ job.
(Also, I have unfortunate 70s memories of the sort of dudes who advertise their bone fides with Did you know I have a mixed race kid? It’s true! Here’s a pic of him & his afro!… or who keep ‘inadvertently mentioning’ My wife used to be an Afro-separatist lesbian, until I pursued her relentlessly! Okay, Bill dude, your peen is not only progressive, it’s magical. But it’s not a good advertisement for your governing talents, IMO.)
Citizen_X
@Kay:
Testify!
Agree completely.
chopper
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
also, back when he was mayor the population was like 35,000. FFS, my old neighborhood in brooklyn is like twice that.
dimmsdale
Speaking as a New Yorker, I’ll just say that getting his campaign promises fulfilled was the easy part (it’s a progressive city and city government, mostly, after all). For everything else, see PJ, above.
And as someone living in a neighborhood being ravaged by rampant developers, with DiBlasio’s tacit assistance, screw that guy.
stinger
@NotMax: OMG I love Beulah Bondi SO MUCH. The last DVD I bought was on your recommendation. Thanks for the recs and clips, NotMax!
ADS
This is pretty accurate.