Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Bloomberg Running, or Just Spinning Again?

Daily Politics is reporting that Mayor Mike is funding his own commercials on the budget-and speculates that this might be a prelude to his running for another office. Is this really a serious idea, given the mayor's tanking popularity? Here' DP's take:

"Despite the fact that he's insisted about a thousand times that he's not interested in the White House, you couldn't be faulted for getting the feeling Mayor Bloomberg's running for SOMETHING judging from this new ad he just bought himself.

Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson gave NY1 a sneak peek at the SKD-produced ad, "Independence," earlier today, with the station saying it's a counterbalance to "the nearly $3 million in ads" that unions have aired against Bloomberg and his proposed budget in the last month. (And that's not even to mention his cringe worthy approval ratings.)"


So. let's get this straight. Mike Bloomberg been independent for the past nine years? Now he wants us all to believe that he is holding the line against the unions whose nest he feathered for over two terms? And listen how the mayor is trying to posture as being above the special interests. YNN has this side of the story: "NY1 reports that Mayor Bloomberg is poised to launch a self-funded 30-second TV ad promoting his budget and touting his “independence – not for the special interests, but for all New Yorkers.” That anti-special interest message is big with executives at all levels of government this year, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo."

A new governor has some credibility to present himself in this manner. A mayor who has been the unpaid tool of the mega real estate developers at the expense of small businesses like the ones at Willets Point, opens himself up to ridicule by playing this phony independent tune.

One last point, WPU has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the EDC sponsored project at the Iron Triangle will overwhelm the local streets and highways with a massive increase of car and truck traffic-and in the process make a mockery of his bike lane, carbon footprint reducing, experiment. All of this in order to convert Willets Point into a massive car dependent mall. In this regard, and only in this regard, are the mayor's interests not very special indeed.