Time To Send Tony Avella To The Political Trash Heap

I have nothing but disdain for the the Independent Democratic Caucus, the group of breakaway Dems that governed with Republicans and helped Governor Cuomo with much of his pro-Wall Street, pro-education reform agenda.

The member of the IDC I have the most disdain for is Tony Avella, the "maverick" who stuck the knife into his fellow Dems earlier this year when he joined the IDC, allegedly because he felt the Democratic caucus was "dysfunctional" and he wanted to be able to pass legislature as part of the governing majority.

Avella was full of shit, of course - he had simply been paid off to join the IDC and help promote a center-right agenda.

Since the time of Avella's defection, Governor Cuomo was forced to agree to help Dems retake the State Senate as part of the deal that got him the Working Families Party endorsement, an agreement that is supposed to render the IDC non-operative, since a Dem-run State Senate would have no place for the breakaway IDC.

Too bad for Avella - it is starting to look like Avella joined the IDC at exactly the wrong time in its history.

We'll see if Dems actually retake the Senate and, if so, the members of the IDC actually rejoin the Democratic Party rather than continue to govern as Republicans.

In any case, Tony Avella's now whining because John Liu is targeting him in a primary:

In February, Mr. Avella joined a five-member group of breakaway Democrats that has shared control of the Senate with Republicans. By June, Senator Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx, the leader of those Democrats, who is also facing a primary challenge, ended that power-sharing arrangement by agreeing to reunite his coalition with fellow Democrats after the fall general election.

But depending on how the elections turn out, in September and November, some suspect Mr. Klein might make more political moves, particularly if he trounces his primary opponent, G. Oliver Koppell, or if the Republicans gain strength in the narrowly divided chamber.

“If the Democrats keep the same number of seats that they have now, which is one more than a majority, I think there will be that agreement,” State Assemblyman David I. Weprin said of Mr. Klein’s promises as he campaigned last week with Mr. Liu. “If for some reason the Republicans pick up a seat or two, all bets could be off.”  

Still, Mr. Avella wonders why Mr. Liu did not drop his challenge. “His whole issue with running was, I joined the I.D.C.,” Mr. Avella said, referring to the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference. “If the whole Liu candidacy was about the I.D.C., well, we’re going back.” 

... 

Mr. Avella called it “a disgrace” that the party bosses were trying to disenfranchise his campaign. He joined with Mr. Klein, he said, because the “Democratic conference was dysfunctional.” The conservative Democrats in the Senate made cohesion on liberal issues difficult, and votes elusive, Mr. Avella continued. Come January, he said, Mr. Klein’s agreement to join his Democratic colleagues is solid.

For their part, some Democrats in the district think Avella is "paying the price" for his disloyalty:

Representative Joseph Crowley, the leader of the Queens Democratic organization, said it was too late to turn back the forces lined up for Mr. Liu. He said Mr. Avella’s “empowerment of the Republican caucus” in the chamber was a betrayal because the party had backed Mr. Avella so strongly.

He predicts a close race, but said he believed Mr. Avella “will pay a price” among voters in the Democratic base for defecting.

Liu has more money than Avella but Avella has "roots" in the district.

I haven't seen any polling on the race but I'll take Joseph Crowley at his word that he thinks it will be close.

I do hope John Liu beats Tony Avella and sends him - and his expedient political career - to the trash heap.

Few pols running in this cycle deserve to be thrown in the trash heap more than Avella.

John Liu To Run Against Tony Avella In Primary

From Ken Lovett at the Daily News:

Former City Controller John Liu has decided to run for state Senate, a source close to him told the Daily News.

Liu, 47, will primary Queens Democrat incumbent Tony Avella, who angered party leaders earlier this year by joining a faction of breakaway Dems who jointly control the Senate with the GOP.
“This is John’s reemergence,” the source said. “He sees it as an opportunity to contribute.”

Confident mainline Dems believe a Liu victory could help them reclaim control of the chamber--or at the very least weaken the Republican-dissident Dem majority coalition.

...

 

The Queens Democratic party, which had been courting Liu, is set Monday to designate him as their candidate so his name can appear on party nominating petitions circulated in the district.

He has already met with key union leaders and hired consultant Neal Kwatra, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman with deep union ties.

A Liu candidacy means two members of the five-member breakaway Democratic faction are facing primaries from traditional Democrats this year.

In addition to Avella, Senate co—Leader Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx) is being challenged by former state Attorney General Oliver Koppell.

Liu is a prodigious fundraising while Avella in January reported having less than $3,000 on hand.

The influential online progressive group, the Daily Kos, which is helping raise money for Koppell, has said it might do the same for Liu if he enters the race.

Some of the best news I've heard in a while - Liu running against Avella with Queens Democratic Party backing.

If Liu can knock off Avella and Koppell can knock off Klein, that would go a long way toward sending a message to corporate Dems and Governor Andrew Cuomo.

John Liu Backs Bill Opposed To InBloom Database

From the Daily News:

Activists and elected officials, including city Controller John Liu, spoke out in support of a bill to prohibit the release of personally identifiable student information without parental consent at a City Council hearing Monday.

The session comes on the heels of revelations that state education officials are working with the city to upload private information about students — their names, addresses, test scores, learning disabilities, attendance and disciplinary records — into a $100 million database called inBloom.

Parents have complained that New York has adopted the model without giving families a chance to opt out of sharing delicate information.

But state education officials at Monday’s hearing said that student privacy is being protected and it’s necessary to share student information with companies such as inBloom.

Media Plutocrats Aim Daily At De Blasio, James

The Post has more negative stories about Bill de Blasio out today.

The Daily News has a negative editorial out about Tish James today.

Every day in the papers, the media plutocrats who own the Post, Daily News and Times - Bloomberg's fellow newspaper buddies and friends from his social circle - take aim at these two candidates for mayor and public advocate respectively with story after story meant to drive down their support and their approval ratings.

Even if the media plutocrats are not successful at helping their guys, Joe Lhota and Dan Squadron, win their respective races, the media plutocrats have another strategy in mind:

To undermine de Blasio and James with b.s. story after b.s. story so that, in the end, de Blasio won't be able to govern effectively as mayor and James won't be able to serve effectively as public advocate if they are each elected.

It's a cynical games these men play (and they are all men - rich, white, arrogant men, just like their pal, Bloomberg), a game they are playing for keeps.

We'll see in a few days when the next round of polls comes out in the mayor's race if their game is working against de Blasio.

I suspect that his numbers will be down a bit after the barrage he has taken in the press - particularly the Post.

And we'll see on Tuesday if it worked against James.

She has a lot of union support and the runoff for public advocate is expected to be a low turnout affair.

That may help her win despite the attacks.

Nonetheless, I predict that the media, along with the establishment in this city, will do to James what they did to John Liu this last cycle.

There will be some "scandal" that will effectively silence her, marginalize her, or worse, and put her out of commission.

That Liu's "scandal" - campaign finance fraud allegations over $7,000 donations - was small compared to, say, Bloomberg's campaign finance fraud bribing Independence Party officials three election cycles running with millions of dollars to put him on their ballot line, made no difference to the plutocrats and their functionaries.

Do what the rich, white men want or they will destroy you.

That is the message we learned from the Liu case.

The corollary to that:

Rich white men get to do whatever they want and nothing happens to them.

That's what we learned from watching Bloomberg bribe Independence Party officials with millions of dollars three election cycles running and manipulate term limits so that he could have his third (illegal) term.

The press will undermine de Blasio too, if he is elected and magnify every little issue, every little flaw.

They will seek to destroy him as soon as they can so that, even if he wanted to, he will not be able to undo Bloomberg's policies.

Meanwhile Bloomberg should be in jail with John Haggerty for what he pulled with his Independence Party bribes.

But he is feted in the media as a hero and a genius - the genius that saved New York.

Again, the message is - rich white men can do whatever they want but you had better do what the rich white men want or they will destroy you.

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...

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.

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.

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.

Where The Mayoral Race Now Stands

Let's assume that Christine Quinn is back in front, with yesterday's Marist poll showing her regaining the lead over scandal-scarred Anthony Weiner, but that her frontrunner status is fluid.

Even though the primary is just 45 days away, we're still early in the race and Quinn and Weiner were both leading the pack based on name recognition and notoriety as much as anything else.

Let's also assume that Weiner is going to continue to lose support as the days go on.

Weiner's had a brutal week in the press, the Marist poll already shows a huge drop in his support, and with more sexting revelations almost certain to come, it's difficult to see how Weiner doesn't continue to hemorrhage support and fall into near irrelevancy in the race.

He has no institutional support, no union support, barely has an organization and even without this latest sexting scandal redux would have had a difficult time placing in the runoff.

Post revelations he has no chance at all.

His name will remain on the ballot even if he drops out and he will still garner some support on Primary Day, but for all practical purposes Weiner's in the rear view mirror in this race - unless something changes drastically in the next 6 weeks, Weiner's going to be polling in the single digits come Primary Day.

Comptroller John Liu, himself scarred by scandal, has never polled in double digits and is not a contender for the race.

That leaves Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson, former comptroller, as the serious contenders for the nomination.

Indeed, that's just what the Marist LV model released yesterday showed, with Quinn leading the pack, de Blasio in second and Thompson in fourth, one point behind Weiner.

Azi Paybarah makes the argument that Thompson, ever the stealth candidate, has the most growth potential as measured by the Marist poll:

We haven't heard much about Bill Thompson (or anyone else, for that matter) since the unmasking of Carlos Danger earlier this week.

But as I wrote earlier about the former comptroller, before a recent poll showing him winning handily in hypothetical run-offs against his leading rivals and before Weiner's latest debacle, there's good reason to believe that Thompson's potential support isn't being reflected by the top-line numbers in the polls.

My guess is that Thompson, who is likeable without being the least bit exciting, will continue to plod along for a while longer without receiving more than a modest share of attention or (with the honorable exception, naturally, of Wayne Barrett) scrutiny. For now, as this video from a brief scrum outside a mayoral forum in Jackson Heights last night illustrates, Weiner seems capable of guaranteeing that much single-handedly, as his candidacy continues to play out like some combination of catch-penny reality show and B-horror movie. The Weiner Show is "bad for democracy," maybe, but good for ratings.

Meanwhile, yesterday's NBC 4 New York / Wall Street Journal / Marist poll had Thompson tied with Bill de Blasio among registered voters in the primary, and two points behind de Blasio among "likely voters." Another modest showing.

But the cross-tabs suggest there's a lot of room for Thompson to advance. According to the poll, Thompson has only 23 percent of support among black voters, and five percent among Latino voters. He'll almost certainly outperform percentages like those, significantly.

It wouldn't be the first time.

I found it interesting that de Blasio showed movement in a public poll for the first time when Marist was released yesterday.

Up until now, de Blasio had been mostly polling at 10% or 11% and had shown no ability to cut through the crowd and move up in any of the polls.

One poll does not convince me he really has a shot at making the runoff, but he will benefit from Weiner's loss of support.

But so will Thompson - blacks have been supporting Weiner in large numbers, but as they fall away from supporting Weiner, it's probable they will move to Thompson.

Quinn, for all the noise in yesterday's poll (and an earlier NY Times poll showing her in the lead), has a ceiling of support that, while not as defined as Weiner's, is nonetheless quite solid.

After all, this is still a candidate with a dedicated cadre of protesters who follow her around the city at her appearances.

This is still a candidate who embargoes her campaign appearances so as not to be followed around by her dedicated cadre of protesters.

And this is still a candidate who betrayed voters by enabling Bloomberg's third term fraud, an act of political expediency that still sticks in many a craw among Democrats in the city.

So where does this leave us in late July, with the heavy ad season upon us?

It seems to me that, barring unforseen circumstances (and given the craziness of this campaign season, there is no way we can do that), Quinn and Thompson should be considered the favorites to take the top two slots in the September primary.

Quinn on name recognition alone, Thompson because he most likely will outperform how he is polling now.

If it's Thompson and Quinn in the runoff, then Thompson probably wins handily.

The Quinnipiac poll showed that earlier in the week, with Thompson besting Quinn in a runoff by 11 percentage points.

But all this presupposes unforseen circumstances and that we cannot do - as Azi Paybarah noted, other than Wayne Barrett, no one has given Thompson much scrutiny yet, but if he makes it to the runoff, that scrutiny will come.

If something turns up, well, you never know what can happen then.

It's been a truly crazy race so far, with lots of twists and turns for those of us paying attention since the beginning.

The exciting thing about all of this is, if you're an Anybody But Quinn person, she had her "inevitability bubble" burst long ago when she went from the presumed frontrunner to also-ran behind Weiner.

Now Weiner has gone from frontrunner and serious contender to national joke.

Remember when we were worried that we were going to be stuck with a Weiner/Quinn runoff to take on Lhota?

Well, it looks like we don't have to worry about that anymore.

I've been saying that it wasn't time to panic yet, that we weren't stuck with a Weiner/Quinn runoff because there was still plenty of time for either one of those candidates or both to take heavy damage or implode before the primary.

That has now happened to Weiner.

It may still happen to Quinn.

Hell, it could happen to Thompson or de Blasio too.

But no matter what happens, we now have a real race on our hands and we just may yet get a successor to Bloomberg who will not run a Bloomberg Mach IV administration.

That's not a bad place to be in late July with just over six weeks to go before Primary Day.

Marist Poll: Weiner Drops Big Time After Penisgate 2.0, De Blasio in Second Place In LV Model

From the WSJ:

The latest revelation that Anthony Weiner continued to engage in sexually explicit conversations on the Internet following his 2011 resignation from Congress has dramatically hurt his standing in the race for New York City mayor, sending his unfavorability rating to an all-time high, a new poll from The Wall Street Journal-NBC 4 New York-Marist showed.

Among registered Democrats, including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate, 25% support City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and 16% support Mr. Weiner, a 14 percentage point swing in Ms. Quinn's favor compared with a poll taken several weeks ago. The poll put Mr. Weiner in a statistical tie for second place with Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, who had 14%, while Comptroller John Liu was at 7%

...

Mr. Weiner's unfavorability rating surged to 55% in the poll—the first to be taken since he admitted on Tuesday that he continued to send lewd messages and photos following his June 2011 resignation—compared with an unfavorability rating of 36% in June.

"These new revelations have cost Anthony Weiner the lead in the Democratic field," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "His negatives are at an all-time high. There's been a significant erosion in people's willingness to say he deserves another chance. They are more reluctant to grant that."

The Journal says this Marist poll puts Quinn back into clear frontrunner status.

I wouldn't go so far as that.

As the Quinnipiac poll showed yesterday, Weiner's stumbles may help Quinn get into the runoff, but she loses handily to Thompson once she gets there.

Also, de Blasio has gained from Weiner's loss of support and now is in second place in the Marist Likely Voter model.

So while Weinergate 2.0 helps all the candidates and puts Quinn back into a lead, it doesn't give her clear frontrunner status - she still has a rough road ahead of her if she makes the runoff.

It's going to be an interesting race - especially if de Blasio can capitalize on Weiner's fall.

This is the first time we've seen a poll with him garnering second place numbers.

John Liu: Stop-And-Frisk As Bad As Stand Your Ground

Comptroller John Liu attacked Mayor Bloomberg for his hypocrisy over his stop-and-frisk policy yesterday:

In a statement released earlier this afternoon, Mr. Liu equated the attitude officers use when stopping New Yorkers with George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watchman who was found not guilty Saturday in the high-profile fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

In particular, Mr. Liu blasted Mayor Michael Bloomberg‘s response to the controversial verdict, which had largely focused on criticizing Florida’s “shoot first” laws.

“Mayor Bloomberg’s statement on Saturday’s verdict rings hollow. If he were truly concerned, he would realize that the same mindset that allowed Zimmerman to believe he was justified in following an innocent young black man permits the NYPD to justify the targeting of black and Hispanic youth in its stop-and-frisk operation,” Mr. Liu said.

“We must work to undo the misguided perception that black and Hispanic youth are guilty until proven innocent,” he added. “Just as states like Florida must repeal their dangerous Stand Your Ground legislation, the City must abandon its stop-and-frisk campaign.”

NYPD Commissioner Kelly has been quoted as saying the goal behind stop-and-frisk is to "instill fear" in every young black and Latino male in the city "that every time that they left their homes they could be targeted by police."

Liu is correct to say that stop-and-frisk is every bit as racist as Stand Your Ground laws and to call Bloomberg out for his hypocrisy.

The mayor's office did not respond to Liu's statement.

In all honesty, that's because there is no way to respond to it.

What Liu said is absolutely true.

Stop-and-frisk and Stand Your Ground come from the same infected place.

Quinn Attacks Weiner And Spitzer Again

One of the beneficiaries of Eliot Spitzer's entrance into the comptroller race was Christine Quinn.

Quinn, suffering from plummeting poll numbers and overtaken by Anthony Weiner's campaign momentum, has been able to use Spitzer's entrance into the race to attack Weiner:

Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner present much the same problem to the voting public, if you ask Christine Quinn.

Today, speaking on the steps of City Hall, Quinn posed a rhetorical question to the reporters gathered before her: "What have these two men done since their fall from grace to make it clear to women—and men for that matter—that their selfish, dishonest ways are behind them?"

It's the second time she's delivered that sort of message in as many days.

Quinn could just as well be asked what she's done to put the slush fund scandal and the term limits debacle behind her.

I guess that's for the voters to decide.

But the good thing in all of this is, Quinn's finally attacking Weiner.

Somebody had to start doing it.

Weiner was getting a "free ride" in this campaign so far, as Michael Mulgrew put it to the NY Times, with no candidate in the Democratic primary willing to step out and attack him for fear he/she would drive her own poll numbers down and help other candidates.

But now with Spitzer in the comptroller's race, Weiner's "free ride" is over.

Quinn has gone after him twice and Liu has attacked Weiner's ethics as well.

Dunno if Quinn's attacking Weiner helps her, but it doesn't help Weiner.

It will be interesting to see the next set of poll numbers on the race.

The pollsters are out in the field right now, polling the state of the race and what Spitzer's entrance into it means for Weiner.

I'm going to bet that Spitzer's entrance into the race has not helped Weiner.

But we'll see when the numbers come out.

Liu Uses Spitzer's Entrance Into Comptroller Race To Attack Weiner

As I suspected might happen, sex scandal-plagued Eliot Spitzer's announcement that he is entering the race for New York City comptroller has given the mayoral candidates an invitation to attack Anthony Weiner on his own sex scandal.

Current comptroller John Liu took that opportunity today:

In the midst of the rising chatter that has erupted since Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer launched their comeback campaigns for citywide offices, most of their rivals have stayed mum on the sex scandals that led to their initial downfalls.

But City Comptroller John Liu, who is running against Mr. Weiner for mayor and holds the office that Mr. Spitzer is now running for, addressed both scandals directly for the first time Monday afternoon after accepting an endorsement from the National Latino Officers Association on the steps of City Hall.

After giving his remarks, Mr. Liu set up the exchange, jokingly asking, “What other questions could there be?”

To no one’s surprise, there were quite a few. But what was surprising was how Mr. Liu used Mr. Spitzer’s entry into the race as an opportunity to aggressively confront both the former governor as well as Mr. Weiner.

“I don’t think it damages the reputation of the political system. I think on some level, this is a huge affront to women in New York City and far beyond. If you think about what these two individuals have been responsible for, and to continue the denigration of the women they’ve been involved with, this is–it just doesn’t smell right,” Mr. Liu said.

When Politicker asked whether he thought Mr. Spitzer and his Democratic rival, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, were qualified to succeed him in office, Mr. Liu reiterated his fiery disapproval of the conduct of the pair of scandal-scarred pols.

“That’s up for the people of this great city to decide,” said Mr. Liu,  as a campaign aide urged him to steer the conversation back to the endorsement. “But at some point, between Spitzer and Weiner, it just seems like the women of this city should be incensed. I can’t claim to be a woman, but I’m incensed for the sheer disrespect that this–the calls for redemption this year have been–have taken taken place in this city.”

Weiner has been treated with kid gloves so far in this campaign.

With Spitzer's return to politics, it looks like the kid gloves are coming off.

It's about time.

Weiner shouldn't be getting the kid glove treatment in this race, not with so many unanswered questions surrounding his past behavior.

As I wrote in an earlier post:

There are still questions over his text communications with a seventeen year that have never been answered by Weiner that need to be answered before he takes charge of New York City as mayor (and the New York City school system in the bargain.)

Still waiting to have someone address those questions straight up, but we might be getting closer to that point now.

John Liu Says Public Polls Undercount His Support

Politicker had a pretty positive piece about John Liu yesterday.

The WSJ has one today.

As in the Politicker article, the Journal article focuses on Liu's long campaign days and work ethic but notes that despite these, Liu remains an underdog for mayor.

Still, the article says

Mr. Liu said the polls undercount his immigrant supporters. He points to his previous campaigns, for a Flushing City Council seat in 2001 and comptroller in 2009, in which he says pundits discounted his chances. Mr. Liu became the first Asian-American elected to both offices.

"Four years ago, the so-called experts said I didn't have any chance to win a citywide office," Mr. Liu told a crowd on Sunday, a well-worn stump speech. "Well in 2009 our community came out together, we came out in force, and we won that election in 2009. And this year is no different."

It's true that Liu outperformed in both those previous races, but it's hard to see how he outperforms in this one.

As the Journal article says:

Mr. Liu faces steep obstacles in his bid for City Hall. A fundraiser and a campaign aide were convicted of campaign-finance fraud, and the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office declined on Friday to say whether the probe was continuing. Mr. Liu hasn't been accused of any wrongdoing. The fundraising charges could cause the city's Campaign Finance Board to deny him public matching funds.

A recent survey found that the percentage of Democrats who view him unfavorably is higher than that of all his rivals save former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, who resigned from Congress after sending lewd pictures to women on the Internet and lying about it.

A key part of Mr. Liu's biography—that as a child he worked in what he called a "sweatshop," an experience some immigrants identify with—has been challenged by the Daily News.

...


Mr. Liu is the most stridently anti-Mayor Michael Bloomberg candidate in the Democratic field. He wants to abolish the police practice of stop and frisk, not change it like his opponents. He wants to raise taxes on people making more than $500,000 a year and on commercial real estate to fund infrastructure and social programs.

They are positions that have caused many of the city's elite to dismiss him. While some real-estate and business executives have contributed to three of Mr. Liu's rivals, few have donated to his campaign. At the Inner Circle Show, an annual dinner featuring humorous song-and-dance routines by reporters and the mayor, the line "if John Liu wins, that would be pretty scary" in an otherwise optimistic song about New York's future drew laughs from a crowd heavy on business executives, lobbyists, politicians and journalists.

The elites hate him and wanted him destroyed.

They got their US attorney for hire to do just that.

The neo-liberals at the DN hate him and attack him on the sweat shop thing all the time.

The campaign finance fraud case and the tabloid attacks have driven up his negatives and hurt his fundraising.

I am glad to see a couple of articles that have some positives about him.

I really do like him.

I would love to endorse him and volunteer for his campaign.

Alas, given the negatives he has weighted around his neck, I don't think I can do either.

I just don't see a road to victory for him.

So I am deciding between de Blasio or (holding my nose) Thompson.

I want to wait one more polling cycle before I make a decision.

How about you out there?

Have you made up your mind already?

Or are you, too, waiting?

I Really Like John Liu

Liu campaigning today.

They destroyed him with the campaign finance fraud investigation even as Michael Bloomberg, who handed over millions in bribes to the Independence Party for three straight election cycles, remains free and unsullied.

Liu's a labor-friendly guy and he wasn't cowed by Bloomberg.

It wasn't a mistake they destroyed him.

They can work with any of the other candidates in the race.

They weren't so sure about Liu.

So they stuck a shiv in him.

I ask again, how did Bloomberg get away with the bribery that put him on the Independence Party ballot for three straight cycles while Liu has been destroyed over the penny ante charges brought against his campaign people?

32 BJ President: Weiner Talks Progressive, Has Policies That Are Retrogressive

Some of the Democratic candidates for mayor may be getting ready to attack Weiner on two fronts - how ethically challenged he is and what a corporate sell out he is:

Hector Figueroa, president of 32BJ SEIU, which just endorsed Quinn, told the Daily News he viewed Weiner as her top threat.

"We [are] incredibly worried, totally worried about Anthony Weiner ... People are giving [him] the benefit of the doubt. I believe he's just out there for himself," Figueroa said.

"We need to stop Anthony, and I believe if progressive Democrats start to look at the race that way, they are going to come to the same conclusion."

A Weiner campaign spokeswoman declined to comment on Figueroa, who launched into the Weiner attack when asked about Quinn's sinking poll numbers.

Something to watch: The intensity of Figueroa's comments raise the question of whether unions and other surrogates will increasingly be charging -- and spending money -- to assail Weiner's character over the sexting scandal that harpooned his political career in 2011.

 A few candidates, including Republicans Joe Lhota and George McDonald, Democrat Sal Albanese and the Green Party's Tony Gronowicz, have made issue of Weiner's lewd texting and subsequent lies. But most of the field has either mentioned it obliquely or tried to avoid talking about it at all. 

Now that Quinn is undoubtedly feeling the effects of Weiner's attempted comeback (on top of the PAC ads), voters could hear that message get louder through the speaker's supporters.

That lets the candidates themselves to skirt what might be seen as a tawdry subject, yet do damage to Weiner over the character question.

Weiner "is the worst candidate in the Democratic primary," Figueroa raged.

"He's confusing the electorate with a rhetoric that appears to be progressive, but a program that is aboslutely retrogressive," he said. "The scandal itself is going to diminish himself in the eyes of voters. You have to go after him. We certainly want to put that out there," he said.

When you look at Quinn’s falling numbers, “the beneficiary of that is [Weiner,] someone who doesn’t have any kind of accountability,” Figueroa said. “It’s none of the opponents that are attacking Chris [and] were hoping to occupy that space...  He’s going to prevent a decent candidate from emerging in the Democratic primary.”

I agree that Weiner could possibly prevent a decent candidate from emerging from the Democratic primary.

That's why I have been saying for weeks that it's time to attack him on his two most vulnerable fronts - his ethics and his sell-out policies.

He talks a good progressive game, but he's even more of a Bloomberg Mach IV candidate than Quinn is.

Someone needs to get that message out there.

The candidates may want to have union surrogates do the attacks.

That will work just fine.

Look at what those independent attacks did to Quinn.

The point is, it's time to take Anthony and his powder blue pants down a few pegs in the polls.

Daily News: Thompson Let CityTime Crooks Steal With Impunity

It's about time Bill Thompson get a little scrutiny for the poor job he did as comptroller:

The effort to modernize the city’s payroll system — a project called CityTime — began with high hopes: a promise of huge savings by bringing the pen-and-paper timekeeping systems for city workers into the 21st century.

But from an initial price of $73 million, city spending ballooned to more than $700 million. Some $500 million of that money disappeared into a vast network of overseas bank accounts. Ten people would be indicted.

In his campaign for mayor, Democrat Bill Thompson touts his eight years as “the city’s top financial watchdog.” But a Daily News investigation has found that Thompson repeatedly failed to intervene as the CityTime scandal unfolded on his watch as controller.

His top lieutenants were told repeatedly about the soaring costs — and were warned that CityTime consultants had racked up tens of thousands of dollars in paychecks for work they didn’t perform.
Yet, of the 626 audits Thompson’s office conducted in his eight years as controller, none looked at CityTime.

“We just kept giving (CityTime) increases, and there was no limit to it. It was so obvious it was a runaway train,” the former auditor, who asked not to be identified, told The News.

“What needed to happen was that somebody needed to do an overall assessment to see where the money is going.”

Thompson spokesman John Collins acknowledged that Thompson could have done more — but Collins said that others, including the mayor, City Council and Budget Director Mark Page, bear responsibility, too.

Thompson's right, of course.  

Others do bear some responsibility for the CityTime mess.

But so does Thompson.

Do you think Liu would have ignored the warnings around CityTime?

That's one of the reasons the Daily News and the Post and the oligarchs hate Liu and worked to destroy him.

He doesn't turn a blind eye to corporate malfeasance and crookery.

 

He audits it.

Unlike, say, Bill Thompson.

 

Here's a timeline of the CityTime scandal, courtesy of the DN:

Jan. 1, 2002 William Thompson’s first day as controller. CityTime’s cost: $73 million.

December 2002 Thompson approves CityTime contract amendment, price rises to $100M.

February 2004 CityTime amendment approved by Thompson — now it’s $114M.

2006 Thompson approves CityTime amendment, hiking price to $244M.

2007 Thompson approves CityTime amendment, rising price to $349M.

July 1, 2009 Thompson approves another amendment. Price now $628M.

Dec. 31, 2009 Thompson’s last day as controller. No audit of CityTime completed during his tenure.

Sept. 28, 2010 Thompson’s successor, John Liu, audits CityTime, finds OPA’s “mismanagement” of oversight likely resulted in CityTime’s bloated costs.

The way Thompson handled the CityTime scandal is indicative of how he handled most things when he was comptroller.

 

He deferred to Big Daddy Bloomberg.

 

Gives you some insight into the kind of mayor he'll be if he's elected.

Mulgrew's Explanation On The Thompson Endorsement Is Just Lame

Here it is - the rationale for the UFT's endorsement of Bill Thompson for mayor:

Mulgrew said that “If you look at most of the candidates, their policies on education are quite similar.”

But he said Thompson was “clear in saying, ‘The city is going in the wrong direction.’”

You'd think if all the candidates were offering similar education policies to Thompson, then the UFT would have gone with a candidate who has talked about making sure teachers get a fair contract, including the money they got screwed out of when Bloomberg broke the last pattern.

That candidate would have been John Liu.

But that's not what the UFT leadership, such as it is, decided to do (and let's dispense with the myth that this was some "democratic process" the UFT went through in choosing Thompson - there's is nothing "democratic" that the UFT engages in ever.)

Nope, the UFT leadership instead went with the candidate who said Bloomberg did the right thing by screwing teachers out of the 8% pattern.

Uh huh - you heard right.

The UFT leadership endorsed the candidate who said "I'm glad Bloomberg @#$%ed the teachers!"

You can bet that a candidate who once said "I'm glad Bloomberg @#$%ed the teachers!" will say it something similar the next time contract negotiations come around and he is running them.

Now I dunno about you, but if all things were equal in how the candidates approached education policy (a position which I dispute, in any case), I wouldn't have gone with the guy who was happy to see Bloomberg screw teachers out of their 8% raise.

I would have gone with the candidate saying that teachers should receive a fair contract, including the money they got screwed out of last time around.

As I wrote last night, this Thompson endorsement is just the latest ed deform collaborationist sell-out from the UFT/AFT.

You can be sure if Thompson is elected, he will turn his back on teachers and pursue the ed deform policies his co-chair, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, and his DFER/charter buddies want him to pursue.

Another UFT/AFT-devised disaster in the making.

Heckuva job, Mike. 

Heckuva job, Randi.

Are Thompson And Liu Being Undercounted In The Polling?

Errol Louis thinks so:

Rasmussen conducts its surveys by landline phones, which almost guarantees an undercount of black and Latino voters: nationally, according to federal government figures, 51% of people living in poverty are in cell phone-only households, as are 43% of Latino adults and 37% of black adults.

By contrast, only 29% of white adults don’t have a landline phone. So Rasmussen polls may well miss trends among low-income, black and Latino voters.

Something similar is going on with Asian voters, by the way.

Strategists in city Controller John Liu’s campaign raise the question: What do telephone pollsters do when someone answers the phone in Mandarin? (Answer: They probably just hang up, which might distort and undercount Liu’s support.)

Louis argues that black support of Thompson is also being undercounted because many black voters make up their minds very late in a campaign.

He says there's no way Quinn or Weiner will garner more black support than Thompson.

If anything, Louis writes, Liu, a "constant presence" in black communities, has a better chance to take black votes away from Thompson than either Weiner or Quinn do.

Interesting thesis and something to think about before the UFT announces its endorsement this coming week.

They're looking to ride a winner (having failed to pick one since Dinkins.)

Unless something big happens, it's hard to see de Blasio winning the race.

But if Thompson is being undercounted by pollsters, it is conceivable that a late shift in black voters to Thompson, along with erosion of support for Weiner as more and more voters get sick of his act, could give Thompson a shot for the runoff with Quinn.

The UFT is rumored to be debating between  endorsing de Blasio or endorsing Thompson.

I wrote a while back that they would most likely endorse Thompson.

I still think that's the case.

The Union Endorsements In The Mayor's Race So Far

De Blasio got 1199 and CWA District 1.

Liu got DC 37 and CWA Local 1180.

Thompson got a coalition of law enforcement unions.

And Quinn just got UAW.

To say no candidate is running away with the endorsements would be an understatement.