Just in case it wasn’t already clear from the barbs on his Twitter feed, Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson is not a fan of Bill de Blasio’s vision for the city.
During an appearance tonight on NY1, the man who has become the mayor’s chief mouthpiece, continued to dig into the sudden front-runner in the mayor’s race, doubling down on previous criticism and accusing the city’s public advocate of flip-flopping on term limits. The attack comes as various forces are ramping up their efforts to halt Mr. de Blasio’s unexpected gains in the polls with just two weeks to go until the primary.
Mr. Wolfson began by defending a recent tweet that summed up Mr. de Blasio’s agenda as “higher taxes, bigger govt, more biz mandates. A u-turn back to the 70s.” He said that, while Mr. de Blasio might disagree with the “phraseology,” there’s no doubt that Mr. de Blasio wants to reverse course on the Bloomberg years.
“You know, I think we’ve had the best 12 years of the city’s history in the last 12 years and Bill de Blasio wants to undo that,” argued Mr. Wolfson, who has known Mr. de Blasio for years. “He wants to take the city back to a different style of governing, where we had higher taxes, where we had more regulation on business, where we had more permissive policing.”
“I think it would be a mistake,” he concluded. “We tried that in New York … It looked like 1974. And it wasn’t a pretty picture in the 70s and 80s here and I don’t think New Yorkers want to go back to that. I don’t think we want to undo 12 of the best year’s in the city’s history.”
Later, Mr. Wolfson attacked Mr. de Blasio for changing his mind on term limits, saying that he’d been personally confused by Mr. de Blasio’s change of heart since 2005.
“Consistency on the campaign trail is important. I have been confused as a voters, as a citizen, about his position on term limits,” said Mr. Wolfson, echoing a recent talking point used by Mr. de Blasio’s rival, Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s campaign. When Mr. de Blasio ran for speaker in 2005, said Mr. Wolfson, he “was very clear that he wanted to overturn term limits and that he wanted to do it legislatively.”
“So I’m confused as to how somebody who had that position in 2005 now running for mayor has a different position and says what we need to do is criticize others for changing term limits,” he added. “That does not make sense to me and I find it confusing in the context of the campaign that he’s using this as a primary means of attack, mostly against my boss.”
Mr. Wolfson was also asked about today’s New York Times front-page story examining Mr. de Blasio’s leadership as manager of Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate campaign–on which Mr. Wolfson served as chief spokesman. According to the paper, Mr. de Blasio was “frequently indecisive” and sometimes “agonizingly inefficient in a high-pressure, ever-shifting situation. Mr. de Blasio rejected those claims when asked by Politicker today.
But Mr. Wolfson, all too inclined to rip into Mr. de Blasio on his policy agenda, side-stepped the question.
“You now, I’m not gong to criticize his tenure on the campaign. I enjoyed working with him on that campaign. He and I are friends,” he repeated several times, before concluding that Mr. de Blasio is “a good guy,”
“You know, I don’t think he’s the right person to be mayor,” he added, “but he’s a good person.”
Howie Wolfson, as hired political gun, will stick the shiv in, but only so far.
What a guy.
You can see the desperation the establishment is feeling over de Blasio's rise in the polls.
It's weird, really, since I'm sure de Blasio can be bought off if he were to get elected mayor.
Yet they're really going at him with guns ablazin' .
Makes you wonder if the internal polls are showing an increased de Blasio lead and they're trying to cut him off at the pass before next week.
Or maybe they're just taking no chances and going extra heavy anyway.
Regardless of the reason, given the firepower they're sending out after him from the press, from the unions, now from the Bloomberg administration, it seems pretty clear they feel threatened by him.
I believe Quinn's trifecta newspaper editorial endorsements also show the 1%'s anxiety over a de Blasio mayoralty.
ReplyDeleteAdd Gotham Schools to the corporate attack dogs as well. The hedge fundies keeping the lights on at the GS offices must have called in some chips.
DeleteYou know I may be expressing a Machiavellian conspiracy but could it be that the UFT leadership (Randi) really prefers Quinn and she and Wolfson are part of a plan to defeat DeBlasio so Thompson gains the second spot and Quinn defeats him in the runoff. The UFT could not publicly endorse Quinn so this may be plan B. I have that much distrust for WolfGarten/Bloomberg.
ReplyDeleteYou are accurate to have that kind of skepticism about the UFTers, of course. I think that's too complex a bank shot for them to think they could pull it off, however, even for the arrogant people running our union who seem to think there is little they can lie and cheat about with impunity.
DeleteWho cares what Wolfson has to say? New Yorkers can think for themselves. His tirade will likely be as effective as the New York papers endorsing Quinn. Did anyone ever consider that his comments may be filled with vitriol because he perceives a real threat in DiBlasio and is afraid that people will choose him as viable alternative to the Bloomberg debacle?
ReplyDeleteI agree. People outside of politics don't know who he is and don't care. I just find it interesting how the corporate forces are ramping up their attacks. Gotham Schools attacked de Blasio yesterday with a pre-K story, then followed it up with a "headline" link this morning that carried water for Thompson. The DN, the Times, the Post - all going at him. Wolfson, Weingarten, Quinn, Thompson - it will be interesting to see what these attacks do to his poll numbers. I suspect they will hurt. But we'll see.
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