Democratic mayoral hopefuls piled on front-runner Christine Quinn last night over term limits at a candidate forum, in one of the liveliest exchanges yet in the race.
“What happened before was a disgrace and it is a mark on the city of New York,” said former city Comptroller Bill Thompson, who ran unsuccessfully in 2009 against Mayor Bloomberg after Quinn pushed through an extension to the term-limits law so Hizzoner could run for a third term.
“There is no indispensable person in this city!” Thompson shouted, attacking Quinn’s and Bloomberg’s defense that it was right to extend term limits to three terms because Bloomberg’s strong fiscal stewardship could best lead New York through the economic crisis.
Quinn defended herself amid the attacks last night in a packed auditorium at St. Francis College in Brooklyn.
“I made a decision a number of years ago based on the economic situation we faced. I believe it was the right decision,” she said.
She also said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio — another mayoral hopeful who has attacked her term-limits move — supported a similar idea when he ran against her for council speaker in 2005.
De Blasio, who fought the term-limits extension in 2008, said he had supported only the notion of changing term limits after an open review, which never took place.
“Democracy got suspended in our town in 2008,” he zinged at the debate last night.
Indeed it did.
Quinn engineered the third (illegal) Bloomberg term by overturning the will of the people of this city.
Twice New Yorkers had voted for term limits.
And a backroom deal engineered by Christine Quinn and promoted by Bloomberg and his cronies and toadies undid those votes.
She can defend the move as "the right decision" all she wants.
As Thompson said, no one is indispensable in this city - not Mayor Bloomberg, not Christine Quinn, nobody.
Quinn should be ashamed of what she did back in 2009.
That she is not says much about the quality of person she is.
She is a cynical opportunist willing to do the politically expedient thing, no matter what harm it does.
It is good to see the mayoral candidates taking the fight to her.
There is still time to undo Bloomberg's fourth term (a la Quinn's first term.)
But the time is growing short.
WONDERFUL KEEP UP THE ATTACK TERM LIMITS TERM LIMITS.
ReplyDelete"Bloomberg’s strong fiscal stewardship could best lead New York through the economic crisis"... he's put every city union worker through an economic crisis... by denying them a raise!
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