Bill Thompson's Stealth Campaign For The Center

The Daily News takes a closer look at Bill Thompson's campaign:

He's the stealth candidate for mayor.

As rivals Christine Quinn and Bill de Blasio attack each other and John Liu rails against a federal investigation of his fund-raising, former city Controller Bill Thompson seems content to barely make waves at all.

... 

Thompson’s decision to act above the fray is both true to his even-keel personality and a deliberate strategy.

He has staked his candidacy on building a coalition of blacks, Hispanics and Orthodox Jews, a game plan that relies more on grabbing endorsements than grabbing headlines.

He is also trying to project gravitas, to reflect his government experience and reassure moderate whites who might be uneasy about voting for an African-American.

... 

He has steadily rolled out endorsements as he attempts to build his coalition. He has touted the support of civic leaders like Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the state Board of Regents, and former Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch, an effort to reassure a business community nervous about Bloomberg’s departure.

He also has positioned himself in the center on some of the hot-button issues — for example, declaring that he would reform, not eliminate, the controversial police tactic known as stop-and-frisk.

The News article goes on to note that Thompson is still taking heat for running a lackluster campaign in 2009 (I think piss-poor is a better description) and has very little name recognition in polls this time around despite his previous political experience and mayoral run (52% in the latest Quinnipiac poll say they have no opinion of him.)

What to make of all of this?

Here we have this "stealth candidate" staking out the center ground in the campaign between the corporate crony Quinn and the ostensibly "liberal" de Blasio, a candidate building a coalition of business-friendly "civic leaders" like Merryl Tisch to make him palatable to the business community, and raising a lot of money from donors like Al D'amato.

Will this strategy get him into a runoff with Quinn, the leader in the polls and the most "established" of the candidates due to her City Council Speakership?

The money he is accumulating and the endorsements he is rolling out, his attempts to reach out to the Orthodox Jewish and Latino communities, certainly help him in that goal.

It's starting to look like he is going to get some union endorsements too.

I think the UFT may even endorse Thompson.

Don't be surprised if the stealth candidate isn't the next mayor.

The boys and girls who own this city want somebody they can control post-Bloomberg.

Liu wasn't that guy, so they destroyed him.

De Blasio is probably controllable, but he is beholden to a "liberal" constituency, so who knows how controllable?

Quinn will absolutely give them what she wants, but she's quickly becoming unelectable, what with her contingent of protesters following her around everywhere she goes and her getting booed at every Democratic forum she attends.

And Lhota, while undoubtedly the best candidate for the business people, is unelectable as well, what with his penchant for saying and doing stupid stuff.

That leaves Thompson - the candidate raking in the bucks from Al D'amato and the endorsements from Merryl Tisch.

The stealth candidate for the center.