Bill de Who?

BY CHARLIE THAU

New York City’s leading mayoral candidate is a 6’5” Italian and championed as a liberal lion. Sound a little different from Bloomberg? On September 10, former Public Advocate Bill de Blasio emerged victorious in New York City’s Democratic primary, with 40.2 percent of the vote. He is also heavily favored in the general election where he will face Republican Joe Lhota.

So who is Bill de Blasio? And should he be the next mayor of New York City? I would argue no, and that if elected, New York may be in some danger, but thankfully not from Carlos Danger.

Maybe the only thing that everybody can agree on about Bill de Blasio is that he is really, really liberal. Running to the left of everybody else in New York City isn’t a new tactic, but has it been successful in mayoral elections? Recent history says no. David Dinkins was the last Democrat to hold the office in 1994. Since then, New Yorkers have been drawn to two candidates who campaigned on tough-on-crime rhetoric, who were concerned primarily with the security of the city, and who supported making New York more “business friendly”: Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.

It would appear, however, that priorities have changed. Capitalizing on liberal frustration with the Bloomberg era, de Blasio unseated City Council Speaker Christine Quinn as the favorite by painting her as an heir to “Tyrant Bloomberg.” This is, in a sense, parallel to the 2008 Democratic primary in which Hillary Clinton suddenly became the establishment candidate and Barack Obama the agent of change. It’s not as if Christine Quinn isn’t liberal – she’s incredibly liberal – and would have been the first woman and first LGBT mayor in New York City’s history, but de Blasio simply out-flanked her from the left.

Regardless of how liberal de Blasio may be, he is clearly a brilliant, manipulative campaigner. His signature policy would increase taxes of those making over $500,000 to pay for things like universal Pre-K and after school programs for middle schoolers. This is a proposal that wins serious support from left-wing New Yorkers, many of whom love to show the world how liberal they are by focusing their rhetoric on taxing the rich. The tax will never become law, however. Changes in laws regarding income tax must be approved by the State, which will not endorse such a measure in a state senate controlled by Republicans and dependent upon New York City’s wealthy residents as a tax base. De Blasio isn’t ignorant or naïve – he knows the tax is unworkable – which makes his stunt particularly infuriating.

So how did he suddenly become the frontrunner? Many argue that his sudden surge came from an ad he ran during the summer, giving him what his supporters are calling “fro-mentum.” In the ad, an African-American teen with an enormous afro, Dante, talks about why de Blasio is good for New York and is “the only Democrat with the guts to break from the Bloomberg years.” He then goes on to claim de Blasio is “the only one that will end a stop-and-frisk era that unfairly targets people of color,” despite the fact that almost every other Democratic candidate has used similar rhetoric. Then comes the big plot twist: turns out he’s de Blasio’s kid! It’s one of the most effective political ads I’ve ever seen, and suddenly made him the candidate who will protect minorities, even more so than Bill Thompson, the only African-American candidate in the field. De Blasio’s poll numbers among minorities rocketed and gave him the boost he needed to become the clear frontrunner.

As de Blasio transitions from the primary to the general election, it would be shocking if he doesn’t take a slight right turn towards the center. He knows that Republican candidate Lhota will label him as a loony leftist who can’t relate to moderate, even left-leaning, independents. De Blasio’s rhetoric against Wall Street will likely soften as he knows that at the very least he will need to have a cooperative relationship with the financial heart of the city. He will juggle that relationship with his identity as a liberal crusader when campaigning in the outer, more liberal, boroughs (Brooklyn and Queens).

While clearly a political mastermind, intentionally misleading the public by presenting pandering policies that can never be enacted is intellectually dishonest. Further, using his family to gain votes from minorities is simply aggravating and underhanded. De Blasio has a long way to go to show me that he is an honest politician with policies of real substance. He will most likely win regardless. As a Democratic operative told Newsweek’s David Freedlander, “Bill de Blasio is much closer to Machiavelli than Marx…He lives for the game.”