Bill de Blasio (D) scored a huge endorsement today:
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, via a spokesman, said in a statement on Wednesday that she and former President Bill Clinton would back Mr. de Blasio in New York City’s mayoral race — hardly a surprise given that Mr. de Blasio was Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager in her successful 2000 campaign for Senate.
The support from the Clintons came two days after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo — who, like Mrs. Clinton, is believed to be mulling a run for president in 2016 — offered a full-throated endorsement of Mr. de Blasio during an event at City Hall. Mr. Cuomo served with Mr. de Blasio in the Clinton administration 1990s. - New York Times, 9/18/13
Bill & Hillary issued this statement in support of de Blasio's campaign:
http://www.usatoday.com/...
"Bill de Blasio has been a friend to both President Clinton and Secretary Clinton for many years," the statement says. "They were proud to see him run a thoughtful, creative campaign about the issues, and they are behind him as he moves on to the general election as the Democratic nominee."
The Clintons stayed out of the primary because they had ties to many of the mayoral candidates. The most notable: former congressman Anthony Weiner, who came in fifth in the Democratic primary, is married to Huma Abedin, a longtime Hillary Rodham Clinton aide. - USA Today, 9/18/13
It's not surprising that the Clintons would endorse de Blasio. He's known them for a while now:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/...
De Blasio, who said last week that the couple had offered him “extraordinarily helpful advice,” served as Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign manager.
On Monday, former comptroller Bill Thompson, who placed second in the primary, said he would withdraw from the race and not fight for a possible runoff election. Although the Board of Elections has yet to release an official vote count, de Blasio last week just barely cleared the 40% threshold required to avoid a primary runoff.
After Thompson conceded the race and endorsed de Blasio, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced her support as well. - BuzzFeed, 9/18/13
I'll be interested to see how active they'll be on the campaign trail. But it's always a good thing to get the Clintons' endorsement. Even though de Blasio is killing it in the polls against Joe Lhota (R):
http://politicker.com/...
Mr. de Blasio leads Mr. Lhota 65 percent to 22 percent among likely voters, according to the latest poll conducted by Marist University. Independent Party candidate Adolfo Carrion trails with just 3 percent.
The Wall Street Journal-NBC 4 New York-Marist survey shows that Mr. Lhota, a former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani, has a long way to go if he is to pose a serious challenge to Mr. de Blasio, who received far more media attention in the closely-watched Democratic primary.
“It’s a very lopsided contest at this point,” pollster Lee Miringoff told the Wall Street Journal. “Coming out of the starting blocks, it is playing de Blasio’s way in a big way.”
Mr. Lhota will need to attract cross-over voters to win in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans 6-1. But the numbers show he has a long way to go, with just 13 percent of Democrats backing Mr. Lhota, versus 25 percent of likely GOP voters who said they planned to vote for Mr. De Blasio.
The Republican will also have to re-introduce himself to voters after a brutal primary with John Catsimatidis. As it stands, Mr. Lhota’s unfavorable are high, with 41 percent of registered voters (and 27 percent of registered Republicans holding) an unfavorable view. Another 30 percent don’t know who he is well enough to rate him. - Politicker, 9/18/13
Lhota's brushing off the polling numbers though:
http://politicker.com/...
After an hour of glad-handing, fist pumping, high-fiving little kids–and even a paw shake–Mr. Lhota told reporters that he’s unfazed by the first poll of the general election, which gave him just 22 percent support to Mr. de Blasio’s 65 percent.
“Look, I have always known right from the beginning that I was going to be the underdog,” the former deputy mayor said outside the 77th Street/Lexington Avenue subway station, rejecting the notion that the gulf was too wide to bridge. “Nothing’s insurmountable … you’ll see my numbers rise. I have no doubt about it.”
Mr. Lhota, who was joined by Manhattan Republican Chair Dan Isaacs, also brushed off unusually high negatives following a brutal primary fight against John Catsimatidis–whom Mr. Isaacs had originally endorsed. 41 percent of registered voters said they viewed Mr. Lhota unfavorably in the poll.
“I’ll do everything I can to flip their opinion of me and who I am,” he vowed. “Most of them don’t know who I am and that’s even more significant. I’ve gotta go out there, get my name out there, get my history out there … And I know it’ll resonate.” - Politicker, 9/18/13
We shall see. de Blasio's top priority is to fix New York City's income inequality problem. Economists like Dean Baker, the co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the author of
The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive chimed in with a few thoughts:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/...
Baker noted that one thing a new mayor could do would be to increase the availability of affordable housing—de Blasio touted a proposal to build or maintain 200,000 units—but conceded that building a lot of new units would “obviously be very hard in New York” given a lack of available space. And, he added, a mayor would be foolish to attempt to “take a hatchet to the financial industry.”
If a mayor really wanted to reduce inequality, he would have to take measures that are not currently on the table, like vastly boosting the wages of the city’s workforce, creating a spillover effect in other industries, creating a citywide living wage and reducing or eliminating the debt load of New York residents, according to Jack Rasmus, a professor of economics at St. Mary’s College of California.
In New York, a bill guaranteeing a living wage was passed last year, but covers only those workers employed at buildings that received city subsidies and were built since the law was passed—about 400–500 people. De Blasio criticized one of his rivals, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, for watering down the bill and has pledged to push Albany for a higher citywide minimum wage, but it is unlikely that any bill that would meaningfully lift the floor on wages could pass the state Senate. Cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles have instituted their own wage laws, but the laws are too new for policymakers to determine if they have lessened inequality—although they are largely in agreement that such laws have not contributed to businesses’ fleeing those cities, as some business leaders feared.
The same goes for boosting the pay of the municipal workforce. All city unions have been working without a contract, in some cases for several years, and while de Blasio has promised a “fair” contract, he has also argued against retroactive pay hikes, and has pointed out that he can be tougher in negotiations with public-sector unions since he failed to garner their endorsement in the primary. - The Daily beast, 9/18/13
The whole article is worth the read. The election is Tuesday, November 5th. Lets keep the momentum going. If you want to donate or get involved with the de Blasio campaign, you can do so here:
http://www.billdeblasio.com/