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July 6, 2007
Bloomberg's Insistent Call for Partisan Disarmament
Gay City, Opinion
By: NATHAN RILEY
Mayor Bloomberg is mulling over his decision to run for President. As local voices reflect on his record, one $4-billion, 22-acre, eminent-domain-abusing mega-headache keeps popping up:
Mayor Mike dislikes partisan government; that much has always been clear. He left the Democrats because that made it easier to run for mayor, and now by leaving the Republicans there would be a clearer path to run for president. His speech revealed his basic beliefs, and probably his basic campaign message should he run in 2008.
Happily for him, the emphasis on unity and bipartisan policy reflects the latest polling results. The voters believe both parties fail in addressing their problems, pollster Stanley Greenberg concluded in an article in the American Prospect.
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Such an adversarial approach to the status quo could produce gains- but how confident are we that Bloomberg will be on our side? Recall Bloomberg's consistent defense of Con Ed during the nine-day electrical blackout in Queens last year, his indifference to rent hikes, or his recent comment about subway overcrowding - "So you stand next to people. Get real. This is New York. What's wrong with that?"In 2005, running for reelection, hearing a complaint in Brooklyn about the enormous headaches the Atlantic Yards Project will create for local residents, he told a voter that if he lived there he'd probably be unhappy too but that the project should go forward.
Bloomberg doesn't earn high marks for empathy.
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Posted by lumi at July 6, 2007 8:30 AM