Bloomberg Furious He Can't Stop Attacks On His "Legacy"

Salon piece on why Bloomberg went after de Blasio this weekend.

Blake Zeff recounts how Bloomberg has used his wealthy connections to Zuckerman, Sulzberger and Murdoch to quell dissent from the newspapers, how he used his wealth as a bludgeon against the unions and the no-profits, buying off some, threatening to destroy others - all in a successful attempt to keep pushback to himself and his agenda at bay.

According to Zeff it worked fabulously - until now:

Bloomberg has been pretty successful in using his arsenal of financial and political leverage to discourage dissent.

Here’s where de Blasio comes in.

Unlike with so many other players who have come before him, Bloomberg can exercise no political or financial leverage over the Democratic front-runner.

Formally endorsing Quinn in the primary – once seen as an assured outcome – would actually help de Blasio in the Democratic primary, where voters have mixed feelings about the mayor (and seem to be penalizing Quinn for her relationship with him). Saying nasty things about de Blasio, as the mayor did in the interview published this weekend, also seems to be helping him. And with both men soon vacating their current offices, there isn’t much Bloomberg can do to him governmentally (e.g., cut his budget) at this point.

As for money, the mayor could theoretically empty his wallet and fund a PAC’s ads against de Blasio. But he hasn’t so far, and for good reason: Doing so might very well boomerang on him in much the same way his verbal attack has. Without the political leverage to quiet him or the opportunity to financially drown him, he’s been left to deploy his skilled aide Howard Wolfson to bash de Blasio and defend his legacy in various forums. Wolfson’s good at this, but compare it to the arsenal of tools the mayor previously had to protect his image, and it barely makes a dent. Even with the city’s three biggest papers endorsing Quinn, de Blasio’s only seemed to get stronger.

The result is that the Democrat has launched a sustained, vociferous attack on the Bloomberg legacy – on everything from his economic philosophy to his stop-and-frisk policy – and it has stuck. Over the course of the last 12 years, it’s one of the only lengthy, publicly audible excoriations of his performance and legacy that the mayor could not quell – whether through intimidation, punishment or reward.

Seen in this context, it makes sense that Michael Bloomberg would be upset at Bill de Blasio. His political and policy legacies are facing a firing squad and — for the first time ever — he may be powerless to stop it.

Bloomberg has gotten shriller these past few months as the campaign has progressed and the criticisms have ratcheted up.

It's suddenly occurring to Bloomberg that he is losing his leverage and very, very soon will be just another arrogant billionaire out of office - lots of money to throw around, but not necessarily the power to put with it to get everything he wants every time he wants.

And under all of this is Bloomberg's big fear - his "legacy" will not be the slam dunk "Best Mayor Ever" he thinks it ought to be.

Bloomberg's hiring lots of journalists at Bloomberg Views to burnish his "legacy," so there'll be no shortage of propaganda writers to tout Bloomberg as the greatest thing ever.

But the public doesn't seem to buy this and the direction of the campaign shows that.

2/3rds of voters want the city to go in a different direction post-Bloomberg.

They don't necessarily dislike Bloomberg, they don't hate him - they're just ready to move on from him.

That sort of thing hurts a man whose ego is so fragile he must put his name in gigantic letters on everything he owns (BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK, BLOOMBERG LP, BLOOMBERG VIEWS, BLOOMBERG NEWS, BLOOMBERG TV...)

And so, he's getting cranky and shrill, lashing out at critics real and imagined.

To be honest, I think the mayor's gotten off light in this campaign.

He is a fraud - many of his so-called successes, from crime to education, are based upon fraudulent or manipulated data.

Corporate criminals have been stealing the city blind while he has been at the helm.

His legacy, such as it is, is the Boxer Day Blizzard, it's waiting until the last minute for a Sandy evacuation, it's CityTime and a two billion dollar 911 system that doesn't work.

The candidates have for the most part not hit him on these things.

I think they are the crux of his tenure as mayor.

So really, he's gotten off easy.

You can bet if another mayor without Zuckerman, Sulzberger and Murdoch as a peer, without billions to use as a bludgeon to quell dissent, will not get off so easy.