Sorry in advance but I will have another diary coming out at 1:30 PM but I wanted to get this one out ASAP before the New York City Mayor race debate tonight. Well Bill de Blasio (D) must be feeling pretty good going into the debate with these new poll numbers just released from Quinnipac:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is the latest frontrunner in the New York City mayoral election, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday. The poll found De Blasio leading the crucial Democratic primary with 30 percent compared to 24 percent for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and 22 percent for former Comptroller Bill Thompson.
Former Congressman Anthony Weiner was in fourth place with 10 percent and has not been at the front of the pack since news of his latest sexting scandal broke last month. - TPM, 8/13/13
The poll also found that de Blasio would win the runoff as well. Here's the Quinnipac poll that was released today:
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/...
This is great news because de Blasio is a true blue progressive reformer with an ambitious plan for the Big Apple:
http://www.newyorker.com/...
De Blasio described New York’s rising inequality in terms that were not only personal but also analytical: the number of luxury apartments being built, soaring C.E.O. pay, declining middle-class incomes (the city’s middle class isn’t just shrinking, he said; it’s “in danger of disappearing”), and the stark fact that almost half the city’s residents live in poverty, or very nearly in it. He mentioned a New Yorker infographic showing the neighborhood-by-neighborhood income extremes that commuters pass through as they ride the 2 train.
De Blasio had some answers, too—the most ambitious proposals of any candidate in the race. These included an income-tax increase for New Yorkers making more than five hundred thousand dollars a year, which would pay for universal pre-K education and after-school programs for kids in middle school; two hundred thousand new units of affordable housing (currently, people can remain on the waiting list for public housing in New York for years); and tax incentives that are directed away from big development projects and toward small neighborhood businesses and industries. He also talked about preparing the city’s students for technology jobs and ending the police department’s stop-and-frisk program—a practice that, as a judge ruled Monday, has violated New Yorkers’ constitutional rights.
It was a far-reaching speech, making its case in both economic and moral terms, describing a city—or, in de Blasio’s somewhat predictable phrase, “two cities”—that just about every resident with some level of awareness is familiar with, likely takes for granted, and perhaps tunes out. De Blasio was trying to move inequality out of the realm of loud street noise—to make New Yorkers think about it, and not as an unpleasant fact of metropolitan life but as an immense problem that must be addressed. - The NEw Yorker, 8/13/13
As I wrote before, de Blasio's website is showing you where you can attend a debate viewing party and a chance to even sign up for one. You can click here to find a party:
https://secure.billdeblasio.com/...
And you can still click here to host one:
https://secure.billdeblasio.com/...
And you can view the debate tonight at 7 PM here:
http://live.nydailynews.com/...
And if you would like to donate or get involved with de Blasio's campaign, you can do so here:
http://www.billdeblasio.com/