What Comes After?

There's a lot of talk in schools and around the Internet about voting the UFT contract agreement down and forcing de Blasio to give teachers a better deal in a second agreement.

People say this will show the public that teachers are starting to stand up for themselves, they're not going to take getting humiliated or beaten up by the politicians or press anymore.

I have also heard how teachers voted a contract down in 1995 and got a better deal the second time around, so voting this contract down will mean a better deal.

I fear that there is some magical thinking going on among some of the "Vote No!" folks that all we have to do is send a message to the mayor, our union heads and the public that we want a better contract by voting this one down and we will, in the end, get one.

I'm a little concerned that we're expending an awful lot of energy and thought on why the contract should be voted down, how to get it voted down, but not nearly enough on the "What comes after...?" question.

There's a scene in The Godfather where Clemenza the capo is tutoring Michael Corleone on what to do after he shoots a crooked cop and gangster who set up his father, Vito, to be killed.

Michael is told to simply drop the gun, walk out to a waiting car and go off to Sicily while the rest of the family "goes to mattresses" and takes the heat.

Michael asks Clemenza how bad things are going to get after he murders the crooked cop and gangster.

Clemenza says "Pretty goddam bad. But that's all right. These things have got to happen every once in a while...every five years...ten...helps to get rid of the bad blood..."

People who are voting "no" have got to be ready for how goddamn bad things are going to get if and when the contract is voted down because it is going to get very rough afterwards and if we're not careful, the aftermath could do more harm to the cause of teachers than good.

The press will be brutal ("Greedy teachers vote down 18% contract, want more!!!") and de Blasio is going to be pissed that his "signature" contract and early first term accomplishment got voted down (and, perhaps, be less friendly toward teachers as a consequence.)

We had better be ready for this.

Let's take the press first - you know the coverage is going to be brutal if the contract is voted down. The Murdoch outlets are going to hammer teachers as greedy scum, the Daily News won't be far behind and Marcia Kramer and others will have plenty of pieces on the airwaves blasting teachers too.

The UFT leadership isn't the best at countering negative press coverage even when it's in their interest to do so - you can bet they're not going to do it if the contract they negotiated is voted down and teachers are getting hammered by the media for it.

So, what is the strategy post-vote for teachers to get their message out to the public about why we voted the contract down when the corporate-owned press is spewing out a "Greedy Teachers!" meme day and night to the public and the UFT leadership is doing nothing to counter it?

Do we think we can counter that "Greedy Teachers!" meme from the corporate press on our social media sites with tweets, Facebook posts and blog pieces?

Do we think we can counter that "Greedy Teachers!" meme by giving press conferences that are sparsely attended by media people and given little press coverage except for a Schoolbook post at WNYC and a mention on Gotham Charter Schools?

In Chicago, CTU was able to garner a lot of public support for their strike because they had an ongoing relationship with parents that they had built over time.

Also, the Chicago teachers were striking over issues that parents and students were affected by - class size, school closures, etc.

Here in NYC, the UFT has purposely run itself as a top-down union and there has been little outreach to parents and the public.

It is true that MORE is a little better at this than the leadership, but even there I wouldn't say there is a relationship with the public and parents where we can say a substantial portion of them will give us the benefit of the doubt in the face of mass smearing from the corporate press if and when we vote the contract down.

So, first point is, how do we counter the firestorm we will have in the media after the contract is voted down? What's the plan to get our points out to the public in the face of a hostile media and hostile UFT leadership?

Next point is, what happens to our relationship with de Blasio?

Currently we have a mayor who is mostly friendly and in sync with teachers - for the first time in a long time.

We could have had either Christine Quinn or Anthony Weiner at City Hall and I can tell you that both of those candidates planned few changes to the public school system from the Bloomberg Years.

De Blasio, for all his faults, is planning changes that I think will make the system better for students and educators.

Two things happen for de Blasio when we vote the contract down:

First, we weaken de Blasio politically, as his "signature" first labor deal that he is basing his whole budget on goes up in smoke and he's going to get lambasted in the press over that (he's already taking hits over the budget and Comptroller Stringer's forcing him to make an accounting change relating to retiring teachers.)

Second, we piss de Blasio off and may discover later on he is not so friendly to teachers anymore.

The first point is an important one - as I say, for all his faults, de Blasio is looking like he is going to be a good mayor for schools, students, and teachers.

It is in our long-term interests to help him politically so that he stays in office for a while.

We know that the corporate deform folks are mobilizing against him - if that wasn't obvious in the Eva/de Blasio charter war, I don't know what was - and we know that they are going to look to take him out in 2017 and put a pro-charter, pro-reform mayor in his place. Eva Moskowitz herself has suggested she might run in the future.

We do political damage to de Blasio when we vote this contract down and we have to figure out a way to mitigate that damage as much as possible because it is in our political interest to do so.

The second point is important too - de Blasio is not going to be too happy with us if we vote this down and he may decide if we are going to hurt him politically, there is less reason for him to help us going forward. I doubt he turns into Quinn or Weiner (both of whom I believe would have ultimately turned out hostile toward teachers - not as hostile as Bloomberg, but not as friendly as de Blasio either), but I bet he gets colder toward us in the future.

While I am in no way suggesting we should take a bad contract so we can prop de Blasio up politically or keep him happy with us, I am saying that we had better think about the long-term political consequences if we vote the contract agreement down and have a plan to deal with them afterwards.

How do we handle our relationship with de Blasio afterward so that it is still productive and not fraught with hostility and animosity? How do we help him politically so that he is not unduly weakened by having his "signature" labor contract and early-first term accomplishment sent back to him with "No thanks!" on it? How do we ensure that we keep a mayor friendly to public education in City Hall for more than one term and not find ourselves staring at Mayor Moskowitz (or, more likely, some Moskowitz-friendly mayor) in four years?

I don't have answers to these questions, but I want to raise them because I am not hearing much from the contract opposition that makes me think people are thinking these points through - and they are important ones.

Teachers are unhappy with the contract for a whole host of very good reasons.

Teachers want to send a message to Mulgrew, the political and economic elites and the public that they're mad as hell and don't want to take it anymore.

I get that and I feel it myself.

Alas, I'm not sure those messages are going to get across without planning and organizing in advance to get them across.

It's not enough to just say "Vote no!" and expect things will work out fine.

If the contract gets voted down, things get very complicated very quickly.

It's hard to predict how they turn out but I think there's a good chance that voting the contract down could boomerang on teachers if we are not careful how we handle the "What Comes After...?" question.

From what I see right now, we're not being careful at all about the "What Comes After...?" but just focusing on the fight to get the contract voted down and then engaging in some magical thinking that it just will work out better because it has to, because it did in 1995.

The truth is, it doesn't "have" to work out better - we have to MAKE IT work out better by making sure we can get our message out to the public over the shrillness of the corporate media, making sure we let de Blasio know it's nothing personal, we still want to work together, making sure that we don't do permanent political damage to a mayor who is friendly to traditional public schools and making sure we can counter the rhetoric from the fiscal watchdog concern trolls that the city can't "afford" a better contract for teachers so voting the contract down doesn't get us just another version of the same contract we have now.

Like I said earlier, I don't have the answers for how to handle these problems, but I know we ought to start turning our attention to them so we're ready to handle what comes after.

Michelle Rhee Says The UFT Contract Fails The Reform Test

Could be a head fake out of the Great Broomster, but Michelle Rhee says she's not too impressed with the new UFT contract agreement:

The camaraderie among the mayor, senior administration officials and UFT leadership was evident at Thursday's big announcement. Praise flew every which way; UFT boss Michael Mulgrew and Chancellor Fariña hugged.

What was not so clear was what, exactly, they had agreed to. Inexplicably, the city focused on the pomp and circumstance of the agreement but has not released its language. This much we know: Mayor de Blasio gave in to the union's demands for sizable raises but got very little in return - no premium sharing of health-care costs, no higher co-pays, no guaranteed dismissals for ineffective teachers who don't even teach full time, no changes to the rigid seniority-based salary schedule, nothing.

For all the talk of a fair deal for students, the union did not make a single meaningful concession.

Make no mistake: I support the generous raises in the new contract agreement. Teachers deserve to be paid like the professionals they are. But rather than use substantial salary increases to drive groundbreaking reform, the de Blasio administration tinkered around the edges, by and large preserving the status quo.

If the mayor had been willing to cause some friction with his union friends, he could have used the new contract to drive reforms that would have enhanced the quality of teaching and had real impact for kids. Yes, it's difficult to stand up to powerful and wealthy special interests, but across the country there are mayors and superintendents showing precisely this type of courage.

For example, in Harrison County, Colo., school officials worked with their teachers union to put in place an "effectiveness and results" pay plan that uses educators' classroom performance - rather than simply their seniority - to make school placement decisions and salary increase determinations.

In Cleveland, Oh., public school leaders did away with the outmoded salary scale that gives raises based on only on tenure and college coursework and replaced it with a more modern system that gives raises based on performance and specialized qualifications. The Cleveland contract also changes how layoffs and recalls are handled, with performance and qualifications taking precedence over seniority.

In Washington, D.C., where I was chancellor, IMPACT teacher evaluations are among the strongest in the country and have helped that school district go from the worst urban district in the country to the one making the biggest gains in student achievement.

In Newark and Hillsborough, N.J., teachers receiving an "unsatisfactory" or "needs improvement" rating will not be eligible for salary increases for the next school year or for any pay raise until they receive an overall satisfactory evaluation.

San Jose also chose to deny automatic raises to unsatisfactory performers.

The contract governing educators in a group of schools run by Green Dot, in Los Angeles, calls for teachers to devote the necessary time and effort to fulfill their professional obligations. Though high-performing teachers typically work long, unpredictable hours, traditional teacher contracts both set strict limits on hours and are extremely prescriptive about what responsibilities can be assigned within those limited work days.

This civil-service approach leads to significant negative outcomes, from parents having two-minute conferences with teachers, to new teachers being told not to work late because it will make veterans look bad. Green Dot's simple language has helped transform the culture of teaching at these schools.

Each of these gains in the contract happened with unions and districts working collaboratively.

These are just some of the ideas that could have been replicated in New York City to benefit students. And a nine-year agreement with generous salary increases would have been the exact right mechanism to do it.

Bob McManus of the Post also hammered the deal today, calling it "catastrophic" for the city, though he was focused more on the cost and the little in "health care savings" that he wanted out of it.

While I think there is much to dislike about the agreement, this much is true:

Salary steps are preserved and continued, unlike in some teachers contracts around the country in the last few years.

In fact, had Christine Quinn won the election, you can bet she would have pushed for a contract that eliminated automatic salary step increases and promoted so-called "performance pay" as the primary mechanism for raises.

Same goes for Anthony Weiner - who also said he would push for city employees to be part of a universal city health care system and force teachers to pay "at least 10% of their health care premiums."

The UFT even put out a trial balloon last year about what a contract without automatic step increases might look like through Unity caucus member and Ed in the Apple blogger, Peter Goodman, something I posted about in March 2013. 

While this de Blasio contract has a merit pay proposal in it, it doesn't replace steps as the primary mechanism for salary increases and while it does call for some fuzzy notion of health care savings, both the city and the UFT claim that teachers will not be paying part of their salary toward health care.

I've seen some criticism around the Internet that claims this is the worst deal ever, Bloomberg's wet dream, etc., but the truth is, it's not even the kind of deal that Quinn or Weiner would have sought, let alone Bloomberg or Rhee.

By all means, scrutinize and criticize the deal, point out the problems with the delayed compensation, the "retro pay" that isn't really retro pay at all, the merit pay stipulation, the ATR changes and the 200 schools that can dispense with parts of the contract if 65% of their staffs agree to it.

But don't overdo it because this UFT/de Blasio deal is nowhere near as bad as some deals we've seen around the country recently (like the one Rhee lists), nor is it anywhere near as bad as what you might have seen had Quinn or Weiner been elected.

That doesn't mean I think it's a good deal - I think there are major problems with it and I know why people are pissed about it.

But make no mistake, it could have been a lot worse than it is, as Rhee points out in her Daily News piece, and I think it's important to take that into account as you talk to your colleagues about it.

Vote De Blasio, James, No To Gambling

Let's go back to last April as Anthony Weiner was getting ready to enter the race for City Hall.

Christine Quinn was firmly in front of all other candidates, the Anybody But Quinn group had just launched their advertising campaign against Quinn but the ads had yet to do real damage to her, Thompson and de Blasio were well behind Quinn in low double digits.

Then Weiner jumped into the race, the ABQ ads did real damage to Quinn, and Weiner went in front in a couple of polls.

At that point, we were looking at a Quinn/Weiner runoff to take on Joe Lhota in the general election.

It was a nightmare if you were looking for some kind of break from the Bloomberg years - Quinn was Bloomberg Mach IV, Weiner's big platform was sticking it to the unions on health care and ratcheting up the suspensions in NYC schools, and Lhota bragged he would double the number of charter schools and add even more reforminess to an already over-reformy NYC school system.

And then came another Weiner scandal and suddenly he was destroyed as a viable candidate.

The race was wide open again - Quinn had been exposed as a Glass Tiger Frontrunner, Weiner had been exposed as a serial perv, and Thompson and de Blasio now had an actual shot to win the race.

De Blasio, having staked out the left positions in the race, particularly on stop-and-frisk and the economy, began to make headway in the race.

His ads helped a lot - especially the Dante ad.

But the weakness of the opposition helped too - Quinn had a dedicated following of protesters and negatives as big as her ego, Weiner had a sex addiction and Thompson had staked out the middle ground in the race like he was already the Dem nominee looking to win GOP votes in Staten Island.

Thompson's stance of stop-and-frisk was so muddled that Al Sharpton said he had no idea where Thompson stood on the issue - and that hurt Thompson badly and helped de Blasio as well.

De Blasio ran the best campaign by far - he staked out savvy positions that put him in opposition to Bloomberg  (a good place to be after three Bloomberg terms), he stuck to those positions, he didn't panic when he got little traction in the race through July, he used his family to great advantage in his ads, and he got a lot of help from the opposition.

And now Election Day is upon us and we look upon a de Blasio mayorality.

The polls have de Blasio up somewhere between 35 and 40 percentage points.

Go out and vote for Bill de Blasio anyway, just to run the score up as much as you can for de Blasio.

Let's see a 30+ percentage point win for de Blasio, the "progressive" candidate.

While you're at it, vote against Cuomo's gambling initiative, vote for Tish James the progressive public advocate candidate, and let's enjoy an Election Night like we haven't enjoyed in a long, long time.

Perhaps like we haven't enjoyed since 2008.

That "progressive" candidate we voted for in 2008 turned out to be a neo-liberal corporatist who talked a good progressive game but governed like a winger.

There are no guarantees that won't happen with de Blasio.

He did meet with anti-union, anti-teacher, pro-Satan Rahm Emanuel over the weekend to talk "transition and urban affairs," something that gives me pause to wonder just how de Blasio will govern post-Election.

But we'll hold him accountable if he turns out to govern like Obama or Emanuel and make him pay for that kind of betrayal.

For now, be happy that we got the very best candidate this election cycle, one we had no expectation we would get back in mid-July when the race looked like it was Weiner or Quinn to take on Lhota.

Happy Election Day - enjoy your PD, then enjoy the returns.

We'll be here for Election Night coverage, of course.

And we'll definitely be here for Inauguration Day and that last Bloomberg flight out of NYC to Bermuda.

Final Primary Vote Tally: De Blasio 40.81%, Thompson 26.14%

From the NY Times:

More than two weeks after New York City’s primary for mayor, election officials have finished counting votes, and Bill de Blasio has officially avoided a runoff. 

Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, finished with 40.81 percent in the primary, which was held Sept. 10. He exceeded the 40 percent threshold to avoid a runoff by about 5,600 votes. 

Election night results showed Mr. de Blasio with a little over 40 percent of the vote, but tens of thousands of paper ballots remained to be examined, leaving questions about whether there would have to be a runoff. 

The second-place finisher, William C. Thompson Jr., who received 26.14 percent, withdrew from the race six days after the primary. Mr. Thompson also criticized the city’s Board of Elections, saying that the pace of the vote counting left him with no way of waging a viable campaign given the uncertainty about the election results. 

...

In the official results, Mr. Thompson was followed by Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, at 15.74 percent; John C. Liu, the city comptroller, at 6.84 percent; and Anthony D. Weiner, a former congressman, at 4.94 percent.

It's good it ended up with de Blasio getting more than 40%, even if it's just a little more.

It puts to rest any bad feelings from Thompson.

He lost fair and square - de Blasio  got over the 40% mark and beat Thompson by over 14 percentage points.

Mulgrew Hit For His Arrogance And Hubris Over The Thompson Endorsement

Politicker takes a look at how the UFT, and specifically Michael Mulgrew, handled the Thompson endorsement:

When the United Federation of Teachers offered its coveted endorsement to Bill Thompson in June, it was seen as a game changer for the candidate. But the union’s efforts came up short yet again, with Mr. Thompson conceding the contest today after placing a distant second.

This is not a new situation for the UFT, which chose to sit out the 2005 and 2009 races, and–as its critics like to point out–last backed a winning candidate in 1989.

Nevertheless, when they endorsed Mr. Thompson for mayor back in June, president Michael Mulgrew couldn’t have been cockier.

“We are very, very confident and we are all in to win it,” he told reporters gathered at their Lower Manhattan headquarters, where dozens of eager supporters waved freshly-printed “Thompson for Mayor” signs.

He had spent months touting the UFT’s beefed-up political operations, repeatedly proclaiming that–after years of losses and sitting on the sidelines–this year, the union would play kingmaker. Their polling data was so sophisticated, they boasted they could “pinpoint the views of Puerto Ricans and Chinese immigrants” and  “tailor messages based on brands of toilet paper voters buy.”

“We’re not about picking a mayor,” Mr. Mulgrew once told Politicker. “We’re about making a mayor, making the winner. And that’s what we’re gonna to do.”

They failed.

 ...

“Obviously the union endorsement got Thompson some votes, but de Blasio’s message and campaign got a lot more,”  acknowledged a UFT source last Thursday ahead of a meeting between Mr. Thompson and many of his advisers at the union’s headquarters.

“It turned into a very different race,” he said, pointing to the dramatic decline of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s bid, which helped Mr. de Blasio cross the 40 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff election. “The collapse of Chris’s campaign and the success of Bill de Blasio’s campaign and message trumped the union efforts on Thompson’s behalf.”

Ironically, some sources said Mr. Mulgrew had wanted to endorse Mr. de Blasio, whose views on charter schools, school closures and teacher evaluations more closely aligned with the union’s. But Mr. Mulgrew and his close circle came to the conclusion–following extensive number-crunching–that there was simply no way for the public advocate to assemble a winning coalition.

Of course, the race looked very different then, when Ms. Quinn and former Congressman Anthony Weiner were the front-runners in the public polling.

“He has no base. He’s got a little of this, and a little of that, a little of this. He has a path to victory, but it’s one of those things where you can’t miss a single thing. And so that was a big part of it,” a union source said of Mr. de Blasio at the time.

Making Mr. Thompson’s lack of electoral success even more notable, the union invested considerable resources on his behalf. In total, they spent nearly $3 million from the union’s political action committee United for the Future, which was run by the UFT’s political director Paul Egan. Mr. Egan declined to comment on the group’s effort, but before it had officially launched, sources had said the group had planned to spend “in the mid to high seven figures.”

Additionally, the UFT placed over 380,000 live and robocalls to members on Mr. Thompson’s behalf, according to union spokesman Peter Kadushin. Members also knocked on more than 10,000 doors, concentrated in Queens and Staten Island, held education-themed rallies and leafletted before and after school once classes started in the fall, among other activities, he said.

Mr. Kadushin noted that Mr. Thompson was at 10 percent in the polls when the union endorsed him on June 19. He finished at 26 percent, with the possibility of a runoff–a decent finish but not enough to stop Mr. de Balsio, who likely received a large chunk of UFT members’ votes as well.

Some said that Mr. Mulgrew’s biggest mistake was not his candidate, but his tenor.

“There was a little too much bravado that held them to a higher standard and they didn’t need it,” mused one rival labor leader, who said late last week that he expected the UFT to jump on board soon. “I think the last thing the UFT would want would be to fail to support a winner.”

I think the cockiness around the endorsement was the biggest problem.

The endorsement of Thompson, it made some sort of sense from a strategic point of view at the time, with Weiner/Quinn running at the top of the race.

I thought Weiner might fade if given some scrutiny, so I would have held the endorsement announcement a while longer than they did, but I can see why they made the call they did - their political prognostications about de Blasio's chances were apt at the time.

That said, Mulgrew's arrogance and cockiness over the whole thing - we "make winners," the next mayor has to go through 52 Broadway, blah blah blah - that was the biggest problem with how the UFT handled this primary race.

They set the expectations and now they're being held to them.

Did they make a winner?

Nope.

Certainly they put Thompson into contention. 

As the article notes, he went from 10% in the polls before the endorsement to 26% afterwards.

That increase in support isn't all due to the UFT's operations - remember Weiner's support dropped from the low 20's to under 5% in the actual primary vote during that time period and we can assume some of that support went to Thompson - but in large measure it was the UFT that put Thompson into contention.

Had they been a little more humble about the endorsement, they wouldn't be mocked in the press they way they are now for Thompson's loss.

Alas, the words "humble" and "Mulgew" do not belong in the same sentence.

It would be nice if Mulgrew and the UFT leadership learned something from this episode, but my 13 years experience with them tells me this will not happen.

They will go on like nothing happened and Mulgrew will still have that insufferable sneer on his face.

It is just like Groundhog Day, the Movie - only in the end, nothing will change.

Mark Green On Why Thompson Is Not Calling It Quits Yet

Bill Thompson said again yesterday that he is going to stay in the race until all votes are counted by the BOE.

Thompson was more than 14 percentage pints down to Bill de Blasio in last Tuesday's primary vote and de Blasio has continued to rack up votes as the last of the machine ballots have been tallied.

De Blasio currently has 40.3% of the votes in the primary.

According to various reports, de Blasio has to get somewhere between 31% and 37% of the paper ballots and absentee ballots to hold on to his 40% total.

The chances of de Blasio falling below 40% at this stage of the count, while not impossible, are improbable.

Many of the outstanding ballots are coming from areas where de Blasio won lots of votes.

So Thompson's chances of getting to a runoff against de Blasio are not that great.

Mark Green has an idea why Thompson is still hanging on:

@azi Let's understand Thomp's wait for final count after 6 years running for mayor: "To leave public life is to die a little."- Dean Acheson
— Mark Green (@markjgreen) September 15, 2013

Well, if anybody should know about this, it's Mark Green.

You might say Anthony Weiner as well.

I always wonder why it's so difficult for some of these politicians to envision a life outside of politics or public life.

Perhaps it's as Acheson said - it's means having to come to grips with a time in their lives that will be no more.

Spitzer Concedes

Weiner conceded already too - gave a shout out to his foul-mouthed communication director, Barbara Morgan.

Weiner's looking like he may end up well behind Liu, may even fall below 5%.

Stringer worked hard for this win.

He got help from the establishment and the unions - but man, he worked hard...

What's Wrong With You, Anthony?

 

Reid Pillifant took a look at Weiner at the end of this race and concluded that Weiner is worse off now than before he started: 

Weiner has tried to frame his endurance and impressive imperviousness to embarrassment as a sign of the mettle needed to run the city.

But unless he dramatically outperforms the polls on Tuesday, Weiner will end the campaign worse off than when he started.

When he entered the race, the polls seemed at least to show that the public's disapproval of his actions was matched by significant support for his efforts to overcome them by running for office—44 percent held a favorable opinion of him, against 44 percent unfavorable.

That's all over now. A New York Times-Siena poll last month found that just 24 percent of respondents had a favorable view of Weiner, compared to 66 percent who said they viewed him unfavorably.

In a Quinnipiac poll released last week, 44 percent of voters said they wouldn't vote for Weiner "under any circumstances," up from 28 percent in late July.

Worse yet, the fallout during his campaign has widened to include his wife, Huma Abedin, the longtime Hillary Clinton aide whose effort to salvage the campaign with an emotional public plea was ineffective and possibly harmful to her formerly pristine public image.

Weiner's actions actually prompted some Clinton aides to air their grievances about him in a brutal New York Times story, and later shot back when Weiner joked about knowing his wife's role in Clinton's future presidential campaign.

“We have absolutely no clue what he was talking about,” spokesman Nick Merrill told Politico. “Maybe his campaign does. Doubt it though.”

Abedin, who had previously made a few tentative public appearances with Weiner, hasn't been seen since she stood beside him at that post-scandal press conference in July.

And Weiner, who used to insist she would be back on the trail soon, is now conspicuously noncommittal.

"Do you think Huma will come out on the campaign trail between now and election day? Will she be by your side on election night?" asked Guthrie on "Meet the Press."

"I don't know," Weiner said. "I'm walking a fine line. You have, as a reporter, you have an appetite for the Huma side of the story. I want to talk about issues important to the middle class and the issues that citizens care about."

Weiner said she had paid an "unfair" price.

"I don't think she did anything wrong," he said. "I mean, her crime is standing at my side and helping me get through it. That's her crime."

What price did Weiner pay to run this campaign?

More public humiliation for himself.

More public humiliation for his wife.

Perhaps even a conflict between himself and his wife that ends this marriage in the near future (notice Huma hasn't been seen in quite some time with Weiner.)

And for what?

Attention?

Lawrence O'Donnell is a jerk, but he has a point:

What is wrong with Weiner that he chose to run again knowing that he has misled the public and the press about when he stopped sexting strangers on the Internet?

Why can't he envision a life outside of politics?

What is he missing inside himself that he craves attention this much that he is willing to put himself and his family through these public humiliations?

What is wrong with Anthony Weiner?

This would be a Greek Tragedy if it wasn't such a farce.

2013 Election: Predictions And Endorsements

Well, we're one day away from the Democratic primary.

It has been one long, long, long primary battle.

We have gone from Christine Quinn as the presumptive favorite to Anthony Weiner's toying with entering the race to the Anybody But Quinn folks launching anti-Quinn ads in April to Weiner jumping in the race in May to Weiner going ahead in the race in late June to beginning to look like a Quinn/Weiner runoff in July to Weiner's Sexting Scandal 2.0 that effectively ended his campaign to Quinn taking the lead again post-Weiner Sexting Scandal 2.0 to de Blasio beginning to gain traction in August to de Blasio gaining momentum by late August and now looking like the presumptive nominee one day before the primary.

The question is, can de Blasio avoid a runoff and if he can't, who will he face in that runoff?

I'm going to go with my gut here and say de Blasio narrowly misses 40% and is forced into a runoff in two weeks. 

Quinnipiac has had de Blasio over the 40% threshold, but Siena, Marist and the AM New York/Newsday poll have not.

As of my writing this post, a PPP poll was rumored to have de Blasio at 38% - also below the magic 40% threshold.

Quinnipiac famously got 2009 wrong, having Bloomberg up mid-teens in their last poll while he only beat Bill Thompson by 5 points.

So I'm a little leery of putting too much faith in Quinnipiac.

I think de Blasio gets somewhere between 36% and 39%, enough to crush his opponents, but not enough to avoid the runoff.

I think Bill Thompson will place second on Tuesday.

I think Thompson places second not because I think he's such a great candidate (frankly he has run almost as anemic a campaign this time around as he did in 2009 against Bloomberg) but because Quinn is such an awful one.

She's gotten hammered for months now over term limits, the slush fund, proximity to Bloomberg, etc. and all that negativity has taken its toll.

It's true that she won all the newspaper endorsements, but no one gives a crap about newspaper endorsements in a top-line race.

In the public advocate's race, in the comptroller's race, an endorsement from the Times might matter, especially if people do not know the candidates (obviously people know Spitzer, but the rest of the candidates in the two races are relatively unknown.)

The Times endorsement did not help Quinn in the least, nor did the tabloid endorsements.

She has some establishment figures, a few celebrities, some unions - those all help.

But her negatives are so high and the downward trajectory in all the public polls so steep that I don't think any of that helps her.

She comes in third in the race.

So it's Thompson and de Blasio in a runoff - a bad situation if you're a teacher hoping for the race to end tomorrow.

I don't want Thompson in a runoff because that gives the UFT a chance to screw up this race even more than they already have.

In my opinion, they endorsed way too early in the race.

With Weiner sucking up all the Anybody But Quinn oxygen in the race in May and June, I can see why they decided Thompson was the best candidate to endorse.

Nonetheless, it didn't take a genius to see that Weiner was still hiding something around his sexting scandal and that eventually it would come out.

I would have held off endorsing for a month, had I been the UFT brain trust, for that very reason.

I wrote in the late spring that the unions, the candidates needed to start attacking Weiner, get the newspapers to scrutinize his record, his sexting scandal, especially the communications he had with the seventeen year old back during his Sexting Scandal 1.0.

I thought a little scrutiny would bring him back to earth.

I was right - it did.

Again, didn't take a genius to see any of this.

Weiner wasn't answering questions straight when asked about the sexting scandal and while I thought the thing that would bring him down would have been something he did before he resigned Congress, I still thought something would eventually bring him down.

I was just hoping it would happen before Primary Day because as of early July the worst teacher nightmare was starting to come together - a Quinn/Weiner runoff to take on Lhota in the general.

Fortunately for us, Sexting Scandal 2.0 made it to TheDirty.com and the rest, as they say is history..

After Weiner imploded, Quinn took a "lead" in some of the public polls, but it was a "soft" lead based as much on name recognition as anything.

The ABQ vote was coming together once more after the Weiner implosion and there were only two places it could go - Thompson or de Blasio.

Thompson, running another poor campaign, tying himself in knots over stop-and-frisk, impressing nobody on the campaign trail with his "meet and greet" skills, was not that candidate.

Rather de Blasio, the one who ran the consistently "progressive" campaign, the one with the consistent stop-and-frisk critique, was that candidate.

Had the UFT waited even just a couple of weeks with their endorsement, they would have been able to make a different choice.

Now it's possible that the UFT was always going to go with Thompson.

NYC Educator and I had this conversation over email - with Randi on board his campaign and Tisch as his co-chair, it was probable they were going to go with Thompson no matter what.

Let's be honest, Mulgrew runs the UFT the way Randi wants him to run it - and that includes evaluation negotiations, contract strategy, and endorsements.

So it's probable that no matter what, the UFT was picking Thompson because Randi wanted him and whatever Randi wants in the UFT/AFT, Randi gets.

In the end, Randi is not going to get what she wants, however, because Thompson is not going to beat de Blasio in a runoff.

It's true that he's only polling down 12 to de Blasio in the Marist poll (Quinn is down 22 in a runoff to BdB), a lead that is not insurmountable, but that's only if you have a decent candidate trying to surmount the lead.

Thompson is not that candidate.

An awful candidate, an awful man, a crook, a phony and a hypocrite (see here, here and here.)

That's our Bill Thompson.

Plus Randi Weingarten and Merryl Tisch are shilling for him.

Can you think of two better reasons to not support Thompson than Weingarten and Tisch want him?

In the end, I think de Blasio beats him double digits in a runoff and that's that - on to the general.

As for the comptroller's race, I think Stringer wins a close one.

Spitzer's under 50%, he's acted increasingly desperate these past two weeks, indicating that his private polling is telling him he's in trouble, and while Spitzer has name recognition, he does not have a great GOTV effort.

Stringer, with union backing, party backing, certainly does have a good GOTV effort, and I think that will make the difference for Stringer come Tuesday.

As for endorsements, I am enthusiastically endorsing Letitia James for Public Advocate.

You can read my reasons for that endorsement here.

In the comptroller's race, I make no endorsement.

I wanted to endorse Spitzer, but his hiring of Students First shills and his touting of charter schools will not allow me to do that.

Stringer I cannot endorse.

Yes, I understand he appointed Patrick Sullivan to the PEP.

Let me tell you something about that appointment.

If that seat mattered, Stringer would not have appointed Patrick Sullivan.

If that was a vote needed by the deformers, you can bet Stringer would have been told by the powers that be that a deformer must get that seat and a deformer would have gotten that seat.

Because the mayor had all the votes he needed already on the PEP, the Stringer appointment (like the other borough president appointments) was superfluous to the deform movement and Stringer was allowed to appoint whomever he wanted.

In Patrick Sullivan, Stringer appointed a good man and an articulate defender of public schools.

But that's only because the fix was already in on the PEP.

So I cannot endorse Stringer for comptroller either.

He's a hack.

Therefore I endorse nobody.

In the mayor's race, I hold my nose and unenthusiastically endorse Bill de Blasio.

I don't trust de Blasio for a whole host of reasons.

First, his work with the real estate industry.

Second, his hiring of Reshma Saujani as deputy public advocate so he could use her Wall Street connections to fund raise for his mayoral campaign (see more about what an awful human being she is here.)

Third, his "Tale of Two Cities" campaign strategy is simply that - a campaign strategy.

He doesn't believe anything he is saying any more than any other politician (see here.)

So de Blasio is the best of a bad lot.

I know he is saying some good things around education, but as James Eterno can tell you, de Blasio can talk a good game about supporting public schools, and then you can never hear from him again.

So de Blasio is my "hold your nose, pull the lever and hope for the best" vote.

Not a ringing endorsement, I know.

But I'm too old and I've seen too much in this fake democracy we call America to believe in that kind of thing anymore.

Change We Can Believe in kinda disabused me of all of that.

Still, all things considered, we're in better shape than we thought we were going to be in July.

Back then, it was looking like Weiner/Quinn to take on Lhota.

I would prefer a straight de Blasio victory tomorrow to keep Mulgrew from making things worse with de Blasio than he already has.

But even if we get a de Blasio/Thompson runoff in two weeks, that's a helluva lot better than the Quinn/Weiner runoff we thought we might be getting back around July 4.

Most prognosticators do not make predictions in political races because it's so easy to be wrong.

But I figure, what the hell, so what if I'm wrong?

It's been a helluva campaign season, so why not go out with a bang?

Frankly, I hope I am wrong - I would love to see de Blasio get well over 40% tomorrow and send Thompson and Quinn off to their post-election Wall Street gigs right away.

In any case, let's hope for a decent election tomorrow, no problems with the machines and, God help us, nothing unforeseen happening as happened back in 2001.

Anthony Weiner Channels Tupac

The News Media Agree - De Blasio Emerges Relatively Unscathed From Final Debate

From the Daily News:

His front-runner status solidified by a stunning new poll, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio sailed through the initial 60-minute broadcast portion of the final Democratic debate relatively unscathed.

...

The debate — co-sponsored by WNBC/Channel 4 and The Wall Street Journal — began a few hours after a new Quinnipiac University poll claimed that de Blasio had the support of 43% of likely voters in Tuesday’s Democratic primary — above the 40% threshold needed to win the nomination without a runoff.

It found Thompson and Quinn, far behind with 20% and 18% of the vote, respectively, fighting to make it to a runoff. Weiner had 7% and Liu just 4%.

For the candidates, the debate represented the last, best chance to address a large number of candidates before the primary.

And given the new poll, de Blasio’s rivals had a mandate to stop his momentum -- but they seemed frustrated at the outset by the questions posed and the moderators’ insistence that they adhere to strict time limits.

The News writers go on to say de Blasio got attacked hard and heavy after the TV part of the debate ended, but "stayed relentlessly on message, sticking to the script that has catapulted him from fourth place in July to top dog — that he has bold, progressive ideas that would take the city in a new direction from the Bloomberg years and bring equality to a New York."

Then there is Lupica, also in the DN, who said de Blasio's opponents drew blood, but didn't do any real damage:

If de Blasio does end up in a runoff, if he doesn’t get to 40% next week, the fact that the others did draw some blood during the Internet-broadcast-only part of the night might matter, and more than somewhat.

But the ones chasing de Blasio needed to do more than draw blood Tuesday night, just because the next week will be all ads and the Jewish High Holy Days, when many eyes will be off the race. In a loud, messy, badly run debate, they needed to hurt de Blasio bad. Came close at the end. Did not.

And Politicker:

In their final televised debate on Tuesday night, the Democratic candidates for mayor tried to re-shuffle a race that has been dominated in recent weeks by Bill de Blasio.

A poll released earlier Tuesday put de Blasio's support at 43 percent, just above the 40-percent needed to prevent a run-off, making the public advocate the obvious target throughout the 90-minute debate.

He was repeatedly criticized by former comptroller Bill Thompson and Council Speaker Christine Quinn for offering a "pie in the sky" plan to push a tax on high-earners in Albany, for accepting donations from landlords he included on a watch-list, and for his 2005 support for changing term limits.

But the debate's format only allowed for brief answers, and didn't provide for much in the way of extended explanations or clear back-and-forth between the candidates, with the most spirited exchanges coming during the last half-hour, which only aired online.

 Harry Enten of The Guardian didn't think the debate changed anything in the race either.

A week to go until Primary Day, two days of Jewish Holidays coming up when things will slow down a bit, then a weekend and that's it.

We're almost there. 

Barring something unforeseen at this point, Quinn and Thompson have their work cut out for them.

Can one of them make a runoff with de Blasio?

I am hoping that they cannot.

It would be best to end this thing now and get focused on Lhota and the general election.

Quinn, Weiner Booed At Rally For Fast Food Workers

Quinn and Weiner are fooling no one with their "We're for the little guy"shtick:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former Congressman Anthony Weiner received a round of boos this afternoon when they appeared at a fast food workers rally–one they were there to support–in Union Square.

Ms. Quinn and Mr. Weiner joined the three other leading Democratic mayoral candidates and a slew of other pols showed up en mass to declare their support for fast food workers participating in a nation-wide strike today. Hundreds of workers from chains including McDonald’s and Burger King were present to demand higher wages and union benefits–and listen to the candidates flex their progressive credentials less than two weeks before primary day. But not everyone was warmly welcomed.

“You know what, you can’t live on $7.25,” said Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who was booed by the crowd as she took the stage, despite having appeared at another rally for the workers at 6 a.m.

Still, she powered on. “We can’t have a city where hard-working men and women like you aren’t getting paid a decent wage when the companies you work for are making money hand over fist,” she said. “So I pledge you my support like I was there this morning with you at 6 a.m. We’re going to keep fighting until we get what? $15 and a union!”

Like Ms. Quinn, former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who is also seen by some as one of the more moderate candidates in the race, was jeered by some. Still, he tried to emphasize the importance of a single-payer healthcare system to help address inequities, pointing dramatically at nearby buildings to underscore his message.

“I want to say something to the owner of that penthouse up there, the owner of that penthouse up there, and the people staying in the W Hotel over there, And I ask all New Yorkers: How much does that $1 hamburger cost you? If you think $1, think again,” he said.

The darling of the rally was the race’s new front-runner, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who has consistently sold himself as the most progressive candidate in the race. Appearing with his wife by his side, Mr. de Blasio strode on and off the stage with cheers of “Bill de bla-sio!” and “Our next mayor!” from members of New York Communities for Change, a de Blasio-supporting group which had packed into the crowd.

I wonder what Quinn and Weiner think about at night when they're home, away from the crowds and the staff and the noise and blather of the campaign.

They can't really be enjoying this anymore, can they?

Isn't it obvious to Weiner he's finished?

And for Quinn, doesn't she see lots of people despise her?

Not the right ones you want despising you, either, but little people and regular folks who used to be supporters of her but now have turned into mortal enemies.

Weiner has to hire people to make it look like he's got supporters and Quinn has to embargo her schedule to keep her dedicated cadre of protesters from finding her and making trouble at her events.

This can't be fun for either of them anymore.

They both have to know, on some deep level, it's over.

Bill Thompson's Support Among Black Voters Plummets

I posted yesterday about the Times story that said Thompson was having trouble with some black voters because of his nearly incoherent stop-and-frisk policy stance.

Today's Quinnipiac poll captures that trouble in a colorful graph (via Azi Paybarah):

The Times story reported that the de Blasio ad with his son, Dante, was resonating with some black voters.

Dunno if the ad is the reason, but take a look at the trajectory for de Blasio with black voters.

Again, this is one poll (one that some people trust very little.)

And those Thompson numbers jump around a lot - there is quite a bit of volatility there.

The Marist poll has shown momentum for de Blasio too - but nowhere near as much as Quinnipac.

And the last Siena/Times poll still had Quinn in the lead with Thompson and de Blasio trailing her by 9 and 11 points.

Also, Thompson's campaign is disputing the Q poll numbers, saying they have an internal poll showing Thompson and de Blasio tied at 24 and Quinn in third, 7 points behind them.

When challenged to release the poll, the Thompson campaign changed the subject to Obama and '07.

Not sure what that has to do with Thompson and 2013.

The CW has been that Thompson will garner substantial support from black voters on Primary Day, that his black voter support is being underpolled by the public pollsters (as happened in 2009 when he outperformed on Election Day with black voters.)

The Quinnipiac poll suggests that CW may no longer be operative in 2013.

Watching how the Thompson campaign has flailed around with stop-and-frisk, I suspect their internal polling is showing them what the public polling is showing us - Thompson does not have black community support sewn up.

First Weiner was cutting into his support, now de Blasio and his "Go with the Fro!" ad looks to be doing the same.

There's still a lot of time left until Primary Day.

But if the Quinnipiac poll is anywhere near accurate, Quinn is finished and Thompson has got some ground to make up with the demographic group that was supposed to be his core support.

Anthony Weiner In Car Crash

From the Daily News:

Mayoral wanna-be Anthony Weiner got in a three-car pile up on the FDR drive Saturday at 8:30 a.m., according to the fire department.

“This morning, on the FDR drive, there was a chain reaction car accident,” spokeswoman Barbara Morgan confirmed. “All are OK.” She did not say who was traveling with Weiner at the time.

Gee, I hope he wasn't texting while he was driving.

The UFT Will Get A Second Chance At The Endorsement - They Can Still Make Things Right

NYC Educator wonders if the UFT blew the chance to have a big impact on the mayor's race by endorsing Bill Thompson back in June before it was clear how the race was going to shake out.

He has a point.

The UFT endorsed back in June because the leadership wanted to run the endorsement by the Delegate's Assembly to get their rubber stamp approval before summer break.

The UFT leadership claimed the Thompson endorsement was a democratic decision that was reached after much discussion among the membership in all the boroughs.

That's horse hockey, of course.

There is nothing democratic about anything the United Federation of Teachers does and there was especially nothing democratic about the endorsement decision they came to after deliberation.

Having not picked a winning candidate since David Dinkins, the UFT needs to pick a winner this time around or seem further irrelevant and powerless than they already seem to the political process these days.

So they went with this dog-and-pony show about discussing the endorsement with the membership while behind the scenes they deliberated to figure out which candidate not named "Christine Quinn" had the best chance to win in September.

NYC Educator picks up the tale from there:

Was it a good idea for the UFT to endorse Thompson when it did? At the time, I thought so. It appeared Quinn was a 500-pound gorilla, Wiener was poised to enable yet another GOP win, and that de Blasio and Liu were swirling the bowl. 

That certainly was the lay of the land in June when the UFT announced the Thompson endorsement. 

That said, NYC mayoral elections have the reputation for breaking very late in the game, so I don't think the endorsement needed to be done so early.

I understand that the UFT leadership wanted the DA rubber stamp, but let's be honest, DA agreement is a sham, the decisions are always made by the leadership and those decisions are always agreed to by the DA.

The UFT leadership should have dispensed with the DA rubber stamp this time around and said they were still thinking through their endorsement options - particularly because one of the candidates they were thinking of endorsing had Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch as his campaign co-chair and that was giving them pause.

Weiner imploded in late July.  Again, NYC Educator:

But when Carlos Danger did his amazing self-destruction routine, it began to look like de Blasio had a chance. Unlike Thompson, de Blasio had never told the Daily News he approved of Bloomberg giving all city workers, except teachers, an 8% raise. Considering that, Thompson's ties to Meryl Tisch, and his flip-flopping on stop and frisk, I declined to work for Thompson against de Blasio.

Now de Blasio is either leading in the polls or in a statistical dead heat with the former 500 pound gorilla candidate, Christine Quinn.

Had the UFT waited to issue their endorsement, they could have had a different deliberation process as they realized Weiner was no longer a viable candidate or a concern.

I argued throughout the spring and early summer that Weiner was not going to stand up to scrutiny if the press checked into him - that he was hiding stuff and it would eventually come out if he was scrutinized (see here, here, here and here.)

I'm no genius, it simply didn't take too much insight to see that Weiner hadn't come totally clean with the public about his sexting scandal and there was more damaging stuff there that might torpedo his candidacy.

Spitzer's entering the comptroller race put renewed scrutiny on Weiner and his sexting past and suddenly, more did come out.

Once that happened, I figured the race would shake up and de Blasio might have a shot to make the runoff.

That's why I held off on making my endorsement, even when NYC Educator decided to hold his nose and endorse the UFT-endorsed candidate, Bill Thompson.

My sense at the time was, there's more to come here and I don't want to write myself into a corner that I can't get out of.

The UFT is an organization, of course, so I can understand why they have a different endorsement process and I won't beat them up too much about the Thompson endorsement.

At the time, it kinda made sense, given the Weiner/Quinn polling and de Blasio not showing any ability to get above 11%.

That said, they now have the chance to make things right again.

The primary is two and a half week's away.

No candidate is expected to get over the 40% needed to avoid a runoff.

Christine Quinn consistently polls in the mid-twenties in poll after poll after poll from every public polling outfit around.

That's enough support to get her into a runoff, but not enough to help her avoid a runoff or win a runoff.

De Blasio could be the candidate who comes in either first or second on Primary Day.

That's where the polling is right now, at any rate.

If that's the case, and he is facing Quinn in the runoff, the UFT can make things right by endorsing de Blasio over Quinn.

Before his campaign imploded over a second sexting scandal, Weiner allegedly told the UFT that he knew they weren't going to endorse him the first time around, but if he made the runoff against Quinn, they should endorse him then, he would be okay with that, there would be no hurt feelings.

Well, post-Sydney Leathers, the UFT doesn't have to worry about Weiner making the runoff against Quinn.

Now it's either Thompson or de Blasio who will oppose Quinn in a runoff.

If it's de Blasio, they can make things right by endorsing him and everything will be okay, there will be no hurt feelings - de Blasio will be happy to accept their help and GOTV efforts against Quinn in a runoff.

My one concern here is that Quinn drops to third and Thompson faces de Blaiso in the runoff.

That would be disastrous, because you can then expect Mulgrew and Company to stick with Thompson, the candidate who has Regents Chacnellor and testing doyenne Merryl Tisch as his co-chair and Al D'amato as his chief bundler.

If Thompson makes a runoff against de Blasio and the UFT doubles down on Thompson, then they compound the mistake they made back in June with the original endorsement.

That said, there is still two and a half week's to go and that's an eternity in politics - especially in NYC mayoral politics.

This time out in 2001, Bloomberg had little shot to be mayor.

Then came the 9/11 attacks, Rudy went from bum to saint, and Bloomberg rode Rudy's endorsement all the way to City Hall (if not Gracie Mansion.)

So there's a lot of time yet for another shake-up or two before it's all said and done.

Even so, if you are an anti-Bloomberg person looking for change from the Bloomberg policies, you have to pinching yourself that this close to the primary, Quinn can't get any juice going to get her out of the mid-twenties, and Weiner has destroyed his own candidacy.

Allegations That Anthony Weiner Had A Relationship With Congressional Staffer

Inevitable - more allegations involving Anthony Weiner:

Before he married his wife, Anthony Weiner had a previously undisclosed relationship with an on-again-off-again congressional and campaign aide nearly two decades his junior.

In pushing back against the publication of this story, the spokeswoman for his current mayoral campaign, Barbara Morgan, phoned The New York Observer‘s editor in chief. Partially confirming the relationship, she said the two “had a personal relationship.” (At that point, Ms. Morgan stopped mid-sentence to request the conversation be continued off the record.)


In a cease-and-desist letter sent to The New York Observer today, an attorney for the woman said his client, Dolev Azaria, “vehemently denies” that she and Mr. Weiner had any romantic relationship “while Ms. Azaria was working for Mr. Weiner.”

“Anthony was my boss and a mentor and we remain friends to this day. There was never anything inappropriate about our relationship. I’m saddened that rumors to the contrary would imply anything else,” Ms. Azaria further said in a statement late Thursday night.

Nearly a dozen sources and former staffers, however, said they strongly suspected that wasn’t the case.

Instead, they described the lengthy relationship between the pair as a badly-kept open secret, with the two openly flirting and behaving unlike any other staffers in the office for a period they say began well before late 2006–when Ms. Azaria left Mr. Weiner’s payroll–and continuing after she returned in mid-2008. (In 2006, Ms. Azaria would have been turning 24 years old, while Mr. Weiner would have been turning 42.) The allegedly unprofessional behavior made some staffers uncomfortable.

“You’d have to be an idiot to not know what was going on,” said one ex-aide, who, like the majority of others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid damaging his relationship with Mr. Weiner and their former colleague. “It was a known secret in the office,” another said.

The close relationship was especially striking, sources said, in contrast to the way Mr. Weiner behaved with others.

“It was pretty clear they had a different relationship than everyone else,” said one source, describing the behavior–openly flirting and largely behaving unlike Mr. Weiner was with any other staffer–as continuing into 2008, when Mr. Weiner began dating his current wife. “If you worked for Weiner, you were lucky if he refused to acknowledge your existence. Those less fortunate got called ‘cocksucker,’” said another. “So [their] rapport was exceptional.”

While relationships between staffers and their bosses–especially in the incestuous world of politics–are not unheard of, this pairing nonetheless suggests that Mr. Weiner was not completely honest when he insisted his personal proclivities were completely constrained to his private life.

“I think the notion of a member of Congress having a relationship with his staffer does not fit the bill of somebody making smart decisions about how he’s running an office and how he’s going to carry on in public life,” said one source. “It is a thing when the boss is having a relationship with a staffer and attempting to keep it a secret from anyone. That’s not appropriate and I think not something that represents smart, sound judgement.”

Smart, sound judgement and Anthony Weiner - things that don't go together.

Thankfully all this stuff broke before he won a slot in the runoff - or worse, became the Democratic nominee.

Weiner was a terrible Congressman, a terrible boss, and he would have made a terrible mayor.

New Marist Poll Out Tonight Shows Momentum For Bill De Blasio

The de Blasio momentum is for real:

The topsy-turvy race for New York's Democratic mayoral nomination has shifted again, with Public Advocate Bill de Blasio surging to a statistical tie with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former comptroller Bill Thompson in striking distance, a new poll shows.

Disgraced former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, meanwhile, has been unable to stanch the fallout from his admission last month that his online sexual relationships with women continued after he resigned from Congress in 2011.

In a few short weeks, Weiner dropped from first to an apparent fourth place spot, according to the NBC 4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist Poll.

The poll, conducted Monday through Wednesday, found Quinn's support at 24 percent, statistically unchanged from the last poll in July. De Blasio jumped to 21 percent from 14 percent.

Thompson followed at 16 percent, just a couple points higher from July, and Weiner dropped to 12 percent from 16 percent.

More good news for de Blasio in this poll and bad news for Quinn:

De Blasio now stands as the race's best-liked candidate, with 59 percent of Democrats saying they had a favorable impression of him, and 14 percent saying they didn't.

Quinn, by contrast, has seen her image deteriorate. Once the clear front-runner, she is the Democratic candidate with the closest association with Bloomberg, and now suffers from a rising unfavorability rating. In February, 17 percent of Democrats said they didn't think positively of her; this week, the number jumped to 32. Still, 54 percent of Democrats said they had a favorable impression of her.

Harry Enten notes that Quinn can't move out of the mid-twenties - either up or down.

She seems to have hit her floor and her ceiling.

De Blasio is now going to have withstand a few weeks of heavy scrutiny.

But if you're looking for de Blasio to replace Bloomberg, things are looking pretty good right now.

Quinn has a ceiling of support, Quinn's unfavorability ratings are rising, Weiner continues to plummet, and de Blasio has excellent favorability ratings and continues to gain support.

One note of caution about the de Blasio momentum, however.

Thompson just starting running his ads this week, he has lots of union support, and there is still the question of whether these public polls are undercounting his support in the black community.

Plus lots of people are still making up their minds and are subject to changing what they are telling pollsters.

So I wouldn't count Bill Thompson out just yet.

But Christine Quinn, with her ceiling of support in the mid-twenties and her unfavorability ratings rising, is in serious trouble.

She can't win a runoff with these kinds of numbers - and the Marist poll tonight bears that out once again.

Free Hot Dogs From The Weiner Mobile

Story here.

Alas, the Weiner Mobile is not giving out any vegetarian dogs...

Is De Blasio's Momentum For Real?

Bill de Blasio vaulted from fourth place in the last Quinnipac poll to first place in the Q poll released this week.

He had been generating some good press prior to the poll release and getting some good notice for his first campaign ad, which featured his 15 year old son, Dante.

But there are some who are questioning the leap in support de Blasio made in the Quinnipiac poll and wondering if he really has the kind of momentum the poll indicates.

Tonight we get a new Marist/WSJ/NBC 4 poll.

While polling methodologies differ from poll to poll and it is unwise to compare findings from one pollster to another, we should be able to compare trends when the Marist poll is released at 6 PM tonight.

Does de Blasio show momentum in the poll?

Does Thompson?

Is Quinn still stuck in the mid-twenties?

What do the runoff match-ups look like?

I've seen some on Twitter say that these polls mean nothing, it's still mid-August, the only polls you should take seriously are the ones in September before Primary Day.

In the past, that might have been true.

But with the Weiner Circus focusing attention to the mayor's race, I think these mid-August polls can be taken as a decent indication of where the race stands.

Ads have been running too, with Quinn up with her ads for weeks now.

That she hasn't moved the needle in most of the polls since she went up with her ads certainly is an indication of something.

We have 26 days until the primary.

26 days until we learn who will be in a runoff to take on the GOP nominee.

Barring something unforeseen, the parameters of the race seem set.

Thompson and de Blasio are battling it out to be the one to take on Quinn in the runoff, with an outside chance that both de Blasio and Thompson beat Quinn on Primary Day and knock her out of the runoff completely.

Where The Mayor's Race Now Stands

Less than a month ago, we were looking at a Christine Quinn/Anthony Weiner race with Bill Thompson and Bill De Blasio as also-rans.

With today's Quinnipac poll showing Bill De Blasio in front with 30%, Christine Quinn mired in the mid-twenties and Bill Thompson barely behind her in third place, we are now looking at an extremely interesting race.

Quinn is in trouble.  She loses big in a runoff to De Blasio and loses handily to Thompson in a runoff too.  She's been on the air for weeks now with her ads, she has the highest name recognition of any candidate except Weiner, but she seems to have hit her ceiling of support. 

They'll go at De Blasio now, so we'll have to see if he can handle scrutiny.  And let's remember, this is just the Quinnipiac poll.  We'll have to see what the next Marist poll shows, what next week's Siena poll shows.

But between the very good press De Blasio has gotten of late, yesterday's Stop And Frisk ruling and now the Quinnipiac poll, it's a good time to be Bill De Blasio, the progressive candidate in the race.

It is now plausible that we could see a Thompson/De Blasio runoff.

Harry Enten and some other people were talking about this on Twitter.  

How's that for crazy?

Just last month we were concerned we were going to be stuck with a Weiner/Quinn runoff to take on Joe Lhota in the general election and now there's a possibility we could have a Thompson/De Blasio runoff with both Quinn and Weiner out on September 10.

Well, there's a long way to go - Quinn's not dead yet.

But if you're a teacher looking for a decent candidate to replace Mayor Bloomberg, things are looking up.