The Corporatists Go On The Attack Against De Blasio

The Quinnipiac poll showing de Blasio not only in the lead in the Democratic Primary but closing in on the 40% needed to avoid a runoff has the corporatists in this city terrified.

As Politicker noted, they went on the attack this morning.

The NY Post in particular was in hysterics:

Surprise! Bill de Blasio is far ahead in the Democratic race for mayor. The latest Quinnipiac poll’s numbers put him at 36 percent. That’s almost double his chief rivals and inching up on the 40 percent that would give him an outright primary victory without a runoff.

Then again, maybe it’s not so surprising. Alone of the candidates of either major party, de Blasio has offered voters a vision. How tragic that it’s of two New Yorks — one prospering, one struggling — and that his answer is to pit them against one another.

Contrast this approach with that of his two leading rivals, City Council Speaker Chris Quinn and former Comptroller Bill Thompson. Each is running on a standard New York Democratic mix of select union endorsements and a grab-bag of feel-good proposals, with a dash of identity politics thrown in for good liberal measure.

On almost all these things, de Blasio trumps everyone else. Husband to an African-American woman and father of a son whose Afro has become a social-media phenomenon, he’s got his own identity cards. And when it comes to the agenda, he doesn’t stint: His policy proposals sound as if they were ripped from 1974 Detroit, with “solutions” that will only make life worse for all — especially those they purport to help.

Our vision is the opposite of de Blasio’s: We dream of a New York whose defining trait is opportunity for all, where those on the public payroll know they’re beholden to taxpayers, and where vital institutions (notably schools) are accountable to the citizens who fund them, not the special interests that run them.

Quinn and Thompson no doubt will spend much of the next 12 days before the primary pointing out that a cash-strapped Albany won’t go for de Blasio’s pie-in-the-sky proposals. If we read the poll numbers correctly, however, many Democrats prefer a leader with vision — no matter how ruinous — to a manager without one.

The class warriors at the Murdoch-owned Post, the ones who backed class warrior Mike Bloomberg on every one of his classist proposals and policies to ensure the 1% of this city gobbled up more and more of the wealth, are worried de Blasio is a class warrior on the side of the rest of us rather than just the plutocrats.

And notice how worried they are about education policy - "where vital institutions (notably schools) are accountable to the citizens who fund them."

By saying they're concerned that schools stay "accountable to the citizens who fund them," the Posties mean they want to make sure only the plutocrats have their say on how things get run, because certainly the citizens of New York had NO say in how Bloomberg ran his education system, not with the Panel for Educational Policy board rigged in his favor.

Again and again, you can see the terror these plutocrats and their p.r. functionaries in journalism are feeling at the thought that somebody might become mayor who isn't as malleable to them as Quinn or Thompson.

They destroyed John Liu long ago because they couldn't control him and they didn't like him.

I remember the day after the election in 2009 - Bloomberg invited the new public advocate and the new comptroller to break bread with him publicly.

De Blasio met with Bloomberg in a diner (they sat in a window table for effect) while Liu told Bloomberg he was busy.

After that day, Bloomberg and his attack dogs in the corporate news went after Liu while leaving de Blasio alone.

The message seemed to be, de Blasio will work with us, Liu won't.

I still think de Blasio will be more malleable to the plutocrats than Liu would have been.

Yet they sure seemed scared at the possibility he could be elected mayor.

They're trotting out the Detroit/1970's card to scare people into voting for one of their corporate sell-outs - Quinn or Thompson.

If you've been sitting on the fence wondering who you're going to vote for on Primary Day, watching the people, groups and corporate entities that have come out to attack de Blasio and/or back Quinn or Thompson ought to settle you on the matter.

As I wrote earlier in the week, you can judge a man by the measure of the enemies he makes.

In this election cycle, De Blasio has made all the right enemies.