Mulgrews "Admires" Quinn

Buried in this Times article on the "power" of the municipal labor unions in this year's mayoral election is this:

On Wednesday, Mr. Mulgrew will recommend a candidate to union delegates, who are expected to approve the choice that day. He is said to be focusing on two candidates — Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Thompson — though he has also expressed admiration for Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker.

Clearly Mulgrew is hedging his bets behind the scenes and making nice with three candidates - de Blasio, Thompson and Quinn.

I think they will ultimately endorse Thompson today but tell de Blasio and Quinn that if they are the candidates to make the runoff against Weiner, they are in line for UFT support in the runoff.

That's probably a pragmatic strategy, but we've seen where our political pragmatism has gotten us before - Obama and Race to the Top and Cuomo and APPR.

So frankly, I would endorse the candidate who stands for issues that matter most to teachers - either Liu or de Blasio - although I get the point about not wanting to alienate the other candidates.

Still, I have my doubts that the UFT endorsement means anything.

The Times article says turnout in the primary should be about 650,000 and the UFT is claiming a database of 171,000 they can target for turnout.

Given that most UFT members didn't vote in the UFT election, I am dubious that the database of 171,000 is going to run out and vote the way Mikey Mulgrew tells them to.