In New York's search for a mayor to succeed Michael Bloomberg, you'd think Bill de Blasio would loom large, and not just because he's 6-foot-5. He is policy-smart, progressive, politically savvy and untouched by scandal. He's connected. (He ran Hillary Clinton's first Senate campaign.) He holds a citywide job, public advocate, that, while not very demanding, is nominally next in line to the mayor. From that post he has been none-too-subtly campaigning for the top job since 2010. As the city emerges from 20 years of Republican and independent leadership and shows its true colors — which are, by most indications, deep blue — candidates don't come much bluer than Bill de Blasio.
Until last week, though, de Blasio's poll numbers were stalled in the low teens. Even after Anthony Weiner joined the walking dead and de Blasio's numbers blipped upward, he tended to be a subordinate clause in the news coverage. When I asked various New York political sages why his campaign wasn't getting more traction, I heard two answers. One is: "wrong narrative." In an electorate that is ready for some change, the critics theorized, de Blasio was offering too much change. The other was: "no base." The contenders include a woman who is proudly gay (Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker and front-runner), an African-American who has started waving the Trayvon Martin flag (Bill Thompson, who came within five points of Bloomberg in 2009) and a Taiwanese-American immigrant (John Liu, the city comptroller) who claims to have a lock on Asian New York. In that company, some suggested, a white guy, even a white guy whose wife of almost 20 years is African-American, is at a disadvantage. And, although he comes from Brooklyn and has an Italian surname, he is too liberal to be the standard-bearer of the outer-borough white ethnics.
The "no base" argument is probably too glib. Identity politics still plays its part in New York, but it is not so obvious or so predictable. New York's minorities — and the city is nothing but minorities — are hardly monoliths. De Blasio has the endorsement of a union, the health care workers of 1199, with a large black membership and a potent vote-wrangling reputation. Black neighborhoods went strongly for Thompson in the 2009 mayor's race, but they also went strongly for de Blasio as public advocate. In any case, it's too early to read much into polls. As recently as last week the Quinnipiac survey showed the leading candidate among black voters was still Anthony Weiner.
But the sages are onto something when they suggest that the election, and de Blasio's campaign in particular, is a test of the city's appetite for change. It is in a sense a referendum on the Bloomberg years.
The city has now had 20 straight years of non-Democratic mayors who arose in crisis. Rudy Giuliani was the answer to a crescendo of crime, Michael Bloomberg won thanks in part to 9/11 (and thanks in part to $74 million of his own money). This year's election finds the city relatively healthy: crime is down, the economy is growing, the public schools are a little better and a lot more accountable. Whatever you think of Bloomberg's legacy (I've already rendered my verdict), he will not leave behind a city looking for a savior.
What exactly is the city looking for? A recent Times poll asked that question and summed up the answer in a word: empathy. Voters generally approve of Bloomberg's performance, a bare majority thinks the city is "going in the right direction," but by a large margin they want the next mayor to be someone who "understands the needs and problems of people like you."
Quinn, Thompson and the most likely Republican nominee, former Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman Joseph Lhota, have interpreted this to mean voters want a mayor whose style is more embracing and whose policies are somewhat more attentive to New Yorkers without large disposable income. They are more likely to talk of building on Bloomberg's record rather than repudiating it.
"I think the job of the next mayor is to take the success and expand it," Quinn told me.
De Blasio is the candidate most emphatic about turning away from the Bloomberg model. His slogan is that New York has become "a tale of two cities," the city of millionaires and the city of those who are either in poverty or sliding in that direction. (John Liu is even more vociferous about this divide, preferring a metaphor of feudal lords and serfs. But so far he languishes in single digits and his campaign is dogged by a fund-raising scandal.) De Blasio rather grudgingly concedes a few Bloomberg successes — "in his first term" — but he says voters feel "a profound sense of economic insecurity."
"They want a serious, substantive reset," he told me. "Because they feel the city becoming more and more exclusive and harder to be a part of."
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