Bloomberg's Endorsement Would Hurt More Than Help

New Marist poll:

If outgoing Mayor Bloomberg -- who’s expected to back Quinn -- were to endorse a candidate, 36% of the electorate would be more likely to vote for him or her, 44% would be less likely to do so and 14% wouldn’t care.

Of course if some of Bloomberg's money came with that endorsement, then maybe that offsets the damage done by the endorsement.

Bloomberg has been throwing his money around already, including giving $1.1 million to try and throw an L.A. school board race to education deform proponents.

So I'd expect Bloomberg to put a lot of money into the mayoral race here, either legally or illegally the way he did last time with the Independence Party, to get the candidate he feels will best protect his "legacy" elected.

Here are the numbers for the Dem primary:

Quinn garners 37% of primary support in the NY1-Marist survey, followed by former Comptroller Bill Thompson at 13%, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio at 12%, current Comptroller John Liu at 9% and former Councilman Sal Albanese at 2%, with 26% of registered Democrats undecided.

Lots of undecideds, so the race is far from done, though Quinn does have a pretty big lead.

That said, I would bet my teachers choice money that lead is soft and based as much on name recognition as anything.

As the campaign gets under way and the campaign commercials tying Quinn to Bloomberg start airing - and they will - I would bet those numbers soften a bit more.

Notice too that de Blasio's numbers are higher than they have been and, while far below Quinn's,are close to Thompson's.

Whoever comes in second, so long as they keep Quinn below 50%, has a chance to beat her.

I hope that candidate is NOT Bill Thompson - not after the abysmal campaign he ran against Bloomberg in 2009.

I'm not the hugest de Blasio fan, but I'd take him over Thompson or Quinn.

Of course my preferred candidate, John Liu, has already been smeared out of the race by the feds with the campaign finance fraud allegations.

I think he has a difficult time winning the race with those smears and allegations - and so far, no charges have been filed, so they remain nothing but smears and allegations.

Ironically Bloomberg himself admitted to laundering $1.1 million to John Haggerty and the Independence Party when he was on the stand during Haggerty's fraud trial.

Yet somehow Bloomberg isn't in jail or the subject of a campaign finance fraud investigation.

That's the way of the world these days - Oligarchs First.