Hands up, how many of you watched the mayoral debate last night? Really? All of you? Wasn't it amazing? I'm not sure what my favorite part was: the heckling of Mike Bloomberg by the Green party candidate (from the audience), the high school auditorium-level production values, the lightning round-good lord, there really was a lightning round (I'm sure any number of enterprising reporters are currently pounding the pavement to discover evidence that Bloomberg's denial of ever having had a manicure was a flat-out lie)-the extensive back-and-forth on water rates... it was indeed a rich tapestry. But oddly engaging!
Democrat Bill Thompson-whose friends really have to stop calling him "Billy" in the press; no one is going to vote for a grown man named Billy-came out hard against the mayor on the term limits issue, but seemed to fade down the stretch, getting bogged down in details and not making as clear a case as he could have as to why he should get the job. Still, there were plenty of sparks there. My favorite part was when the Univision reporter asked both men why Latinos were underrepresented in their respective offices and the mayor responded to the question with his freshman year Spanish, saying that there were plenty of people of color in his office, at which point you could totally see Thompson thinking, "Well, wait, if we're scoring by the 'people of color' metric I can ACE this." Another highlight: Getting to see what local radio fave Brian Lehrer looks like in real life (a left testicle). I am not kidding when I say that this was actually a rather enjoyable hour. I'm looking forward to the next one, unless it happens on a night when I've got any other plans.
Favorite question: Should Roman Polanski be in prison? Both men: Yes.
Topical!
Do you exercise every day?
The "Eight is Enough" exchange reminded me why I never watch these things.
I'm old-fashioned. I'm going to need to see your left testicle if I am to have an informed opinion.
hello Nurse!
Why is no one making an issue of the fact that Bloomberg successfully argued against a 3rd term for Giuliani after 9/11 in order to win his first term? Is the largely under-control financial crisis somehow more dire than the aftermath of 9/11?
Thompson had a nice line about how neither of them would be in their current offices had term limits been repealed earlier.
Basically, Thompson's only argument is that Bloomberg shouldn't have a third term because his repeal of term limits was a wee bit on the shady side.
Guiliani didn't run for a third term in 2001 because he abided by the term limit law. After 9/11 happened, he kindly offerred to stick around for a few months and have Bloomberg take office April 1 but got shot down by the state assembly.
There was a great deal of public support for a 3rd term for Rudy at the time, and there was talk of like another half term for him or something. Bloomberg very definitively put the kibosh on all of that.
The only difference here is he's had enough time to change the law. It's very shady and people should not vote for him.
Yeah, but you have to give credit to Bloomberg for being politically savy enough to get the law repealed.
What about all of the politicians who were complicit in Bloomberg's scheme? Will you not vote for Christine Quinn when she runs for mayor? Clearly she made a backroom deal with him to support the repeal of term limits if he supports her inevitable run for mayor.
Re: your comment below...no I will not vote for Christine Quinn, because she caved to Bloomberg, the slush fund scandal and because I think she's a really annoying loud mouth.
Is this even a contest? What are the polls?
From WSJ:
The two polls most closely tracking the mayor's race, by Marist College and Quinnipiac University, show Mr. Bloomberg with leads of nine and 16 points, respectively, among likely voters. The Marist poll was released Sept. 21; the Quinnipiac poll was out Sept. 24.
Bloomberg's decision to go for a third term put Quinn in a terrible place. She could have fought it, although she probably would have lost (most other Council Members desperately wanted to extend term limits), at which point she could neither try to stay on as Speaker nor run for Mayor (well, either of those options would have been difficult).
She inherited and ended the slush fund thing, a scandal that looks worse on paper than it actually was (but politically, there's no difference there).
As for her personality, that's subjective.
That voice...although I don't love hearing Bloomberg say things like, "The snow is cawsting a million dollas an inch."
How am I doing?