Examiner.com: Bloomberg wants to run both ways, left and right

This comes from Examiner.com:

On Friday, Bloomberg aides leaked that the mayor, who was twice elected as a Republican, but recently dropped all party affiliation was courting the support of the city's five Republican county chairs to support him in an effort to seek a third term later this year as a Republican. The Democrat turned Republican turned independent would need the support of at least three of the five county chairs to even run in a GOP Primary. Sources said that he will meet with all five county chairs on February 25 in a final effort to court their support, after which a decision would be announced.

But a report in today's Daily News says that the mayor is also seeking to run on the Working Families Party line, a labor-oriented party that generally leans to the left of Democrats.

The mayor is "welcome to apply" for the labor-backed Working Families Party line, said Dan Cantor, its executive director.

Still, Cantor called it "the longest of long shots."

Read more here.

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DePaolo: Hugo and Mike

The following was written by Phil De Paolo:

President Hugo Chavez won a voter referendum to eliminate term limits yesterday. 54 percent had voted for the constitutional amendment, 46 percent had voted against it. The vote was hastily arranged in the last two months. The campaigning was marked by antigovernment protests and attacks by supporters of Mr. Chávez on institutions viewed as critical of the president, including media organizations.

In NYC Mayor Bloomberg scrapped the city's term limit law in a little over two weeks. He's used the city council to pass a bill that would allow him to seek four more years in office. On October 23, 2

008 the City Council voted 29-22 in favor of extending the term limit to three consecutive four year terms, thus allowing both Bloomberg and council members in their second terms to run for office again. New Yorkers were upset by the Mayor's actions and the 29 City Council people who voted for the extension of term limits. Whether they were for term limits or not they strongly believe that the process was wrong. If there was to be a change, it had to be via a public referendum not by legislation. By an overwhelming margin, 89 percent to 7 percent, voter say the issue of term limits should be decided by voters in a referendum, not by an act of the Council.
“Voters to City Council: We voted for term limits twice and, if it’s going to change, it should be us not you who decide it,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez gestures as he leaves the polling station

Chavez opponents claim that the results were skewed by Chavez's broad use of resources to get out the vote, through news media and pressure on 2 million public employees. Mr. Chávez threw the weight of institutions controlled by his supporters, including the National Assembly and the entire federal bureaucracy, behind the proposal. The powerful national oil company, and the national telephone company mobilized employees to campaign for the measure.

Opponents say Chavez already has far too much power, with the courts, the legislature and the election council all under his influence. Removing the presidential term limit, they s

ay, makes him unstoppable.

In NYC Mayor Bloomberg held conversations with Rupert Murdoch, Who owns The New York Post; Mortimer B. Zuckerman, a close friend and the owner of The Daily News; and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher 

of The Times, to help him overturn term limits. Days later the New York Post and the Daily News, both ran editorials under the headline "Run, Mike, Run" that called for changing the rules so that Mr. Bloomberg could stand for re election. And the New York Times complained that the term limits law "is particularly unappealing now because it would deny New Yorkers at a time when the city's economy is under great stress the right to decide for themselves whether an effective and popular mayor should stay in office."

The paper took the opposite view seven years ago, when there was talk of extending the second term of Mr. Bloomberg's predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, in the wake of 9/11. "To suggest that the city would be incapable of getting along without Mr. Giuliani undermines New York's sense of self sufficiency," said the Times. "While Mr. Giuliani has been a great leader during this crisis, the truth is that no one is indispensable.

Mayor Bloomberg then showered cash on key City Council members with the power to kill the term limits extension bill. Members of the council's Government Operations Committee received millions from Bloomberg’s slush fund, a secret pot of taxpayer money the mayor doled out to favored lawmakers for their pet causes. Five members of the committee secured $3.1 million from the $5.3 million stash in Bloomberg's 2008 budget.

The New York Times reported days after the Term Limits debate that the Mayor and his top deputies had pressed social service, arts and neighborhood groups that received donations from Mr. Bloomberg to express support for his third term bid by testifying during public hearings and by personally appealing to undecided members of the City Council. A few days later the mayor’s aides organized a press conference in which nearly a dozen union leaders endorsed the legislation to extend term limits. Fifteen minutes before the event began, the union leaders met inside City Hall with Edward Skyler, the deputy mayor for operations, to discuss what they would say, according to people briefed on the matter. When they emerged to speak to reporters, the labor officials sounded strikingly similar themes, at times using the same words. So it seems that Hugo and Mike used many of the same methods to get what they wanted although Hugo actually let the people vote on it. Mayor Bloomberg just used the City Council.

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New mayoral poll

A person identifying himself as an employee of PPO Research (Political Public Opinion) called me on Thursday 2/12 6:39 pm to get my opinion about the upcoming mayoral race in New York City. 

The survey asked about my support for Bloomberg, and my support for him versus Anthony Weiner and versus Bill Thompson. Given that the poll did NOT ask about term limits and failed to mention Tony Avella, it’s a fair guess to say that the poll was conducted by the Bloomberg campaign.

The poll included several questions that you might expect. I didn’t record the conversation, so I’m not sure of the exact phrasing, but the questions did include things like

“Do you consider yourself very liberal, liberal, conservative or very conservative?”
“What is your religion”

“How often do you attend religious services?”

“When choosing a candidate, do you consider party affiliation or independent judgment?”

“Should government support go to fighting terrorism or fighting economic uncertainty?”

There were also some non-political questions, such as

“When you are at a party, do you like to talk to people you know or do you talk to new people?”

“What worries you more, violent or white collar crime?”

My favorite question, and the only one I made sure to get exactly, was

“For statistical purposes, how would you describe your sexual orientation?”

I thought this was funny because as far as I know, it’s quite difficult to determine what percentage of the population has which sexual orientation, so this question was not asked for statistical purposes.

One pair open-ended questions went 

“What is your top priority in the upcoming election? What is your next priority?”

After asking several questions, the pollster asked a second time about my opinions of the current mayor. I asked the pollster who was paying for the survey, and he said he was not given that information because it might skew the results. I asked him if he was based in New York, and he said no. I also asked what the breakdown of support for Bloomberg had been in his experience, and he said 50-50.

After a quick web search, I have not been able to find PPO Research. My phone’s caller ID appeared as “Unknown Name 000-000-0000.”

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Mole333: Defeating Bloomberg and the Bloomberg 29

Mole's Progressive Democrat posted Defeating Bloomberg and the Bloomberg 29 which has a lot of information for those who are opposed to the current mayor and his enablers.  

Here's a taste:

I want to also re-introduce you to the Facebook site dedicated to defeating Tsar Bloomberg and the Bloomberg 29:

Here is their statement of purpose:

On October 23, 2008 the New York City Council passed Mayor Bloomberg's proposal that extended term limits from 2 terms to 3 terms for the Mayor, City Council, and other city officials without a voter referendum even though New Yorkers voted in 1993 and 1996 to keep term limits at 2 terms. The final vote was 29 YES and 22 NO.

According to a Quinnipiac poll, 89% of New Yorkers believe that the issue of term limits should be decided by voters in a referendum, not by an act by the City Council.

To read more (including opinions about some notable City Council races), click here. 

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Rob Caloras on Bloomberg

NYC Public School Parents posted an article called Rob Caloras on Bloomberg's authoritarian arrogance:

At a recent press conference, Mayor Bloomberg stated that people who want to change the school governance law are either irrational or putting their own self interest ahead of students. On his radio show he said that, there would be riots in the streets if his control over the schools is not continued.

For the full article, click here. 

Room 8 parodied this radio show at a cryptic post, TOP 10 OTHER THINGS MAYOR BLOOMBERG THINKS MIGHT CAUSE RIOTS IN THE STREETS.

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An Orthodox blogger questions Bloomberg: Miffed by "Ridiculous" Question

What's this? Vos Iz Neias, a self-described voice of the Orthodox Jewish Community, challenges Bloomberg's logic in Bloomberg Miffed by "Ridiculous" Question:

We're facing tough times. The mayor is a great philanthropist. He's supported many charitable causes. The other day, he promised the bishop of Brooklyn to consider a plan to convert four parochial schools threatened with being closed into public charter schools.

But it is hardly ridiculous to ask whether this man should flaunt his wealth in the political arena. he has done good for the city. He has also exhibited great hubris and if he truly believes in a democratic system, he should be willing to accept legal limits on campaign expenditures.

You have fans out there, Mr. Mayor, and critics. Are you afraid to test your achievements on a level playing field?

For more, click here. 

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Conflicts of Interest Board goes after the little fish

Accountable Talk, a school-oriented blog, riffs on the irony of the Conflicts of Interest Board fining a teacher but letting Bloomberg slide. 

Read more here. 

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