Too Early To Write Off De Blasio

There was a lot of consternation that Mayor Bill de Blasio was being destroyed by the outright hostility many NYPD officers and the police unions were showing toward him in the past few weeks, but a new Quinnipiac poll suggests protesting cops may have overplayed their hands:

By overwhelming margins, New York City voters objected to the back-turning protests and work slowdown that have roiled the Police Department, an auspicious turn for Mayor Bill de Blasio as he seeks to end weeks of open tensions between officers and City Hall.

A poll released on Thursday revealed deep dismay — across racial, gender and geographic lines — over the tactics and incendiary statements of protesting officers, and a desire to discipline those who deliberately made fewer arrests.

For Mr. de Blasio, who had initially appeared beleaguered as he confronted a rebellion within law enforcement, the poll offers vindication of his strategy of waiting out police protests and refusing to apologize for his efforts at reform.

In their zeal to show the mayor he had neglected them, leaders of police unions appear to have overplayed their hand, giving Mr. de Blasio a key advantage by alienating a public accustomed to years without such explosive tensions in the ranks.

The poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University, comes as Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, faces growing challenges from members who believe he has gone too far in his attacks on City Hall.

The Times article goes on to say that de Blasio purposely didn't engage publicly with the police unions or critics, telling his aides that he trusted the "public’s judgment on how people conduct themselves.”

There's no overall approval/disapproval in the poll on de Blasio - just on Commissioner Bratton (who is up 12 percentage points to 56% approval.)

And you can bet there's some lasting damage from this battle that de Blasio will probably never be able to undo.

But any politician or former politician looking to exploit the battle between the NYPD and de Blasio - including one Eva Moskowitz and one Harold Ford - must understand that de Blasio is a lot wilier and skilled at politics than he appears on the surface.

Many pols facing what de Blasio faced in the last month might have panicked in response to the crisis.

De Blasio didn't, he let Bratton handle a lot of the public relations and he looks like he may have weathered the crisis - at least for now.

Karl Rove: Harold Ford Wanted To Run For Senate As A Republican

When Harold Ford announced he would not run for a Senate seat in New York, he gave this as his reason:

I’ve examined this race in every possible way, and I keep returning to the same fundamental conclusion: If I run, the likely result would be a brutal and highly negative Democratic primary — a primary where the winner emerges weakened and the Republican strengthened.

I refuse to do anything that would help Republicans win a Senate seat in New York, and give the Senate majority to the Republicans.

That bit of self-serving jive is interesting given that Lloyd Grove reports Ford asked Karl Rove to meet with him about running for Senate in Tennessee in 2006 - as a Republican:

Such was his reputation as a kingmaker that shortly after the 2004 election, no less a Democrat than Rep. Harold Ford Jr.—back then a four-term congressman from Memphis—requested a meeting to discuss his political future in Tennessee. According to a knowledgeable source, Rove sat for three hours with the young congressman at the Washington home of mutual friends, where Ford floated the idea of switching parties to run for the Senate in 2006 as a Republican—that is, if President Bush could “clear the field” and prevent a contested primary. According to my source, Rove responded encouragingly, but nothing came of the secret session, and Ford ended up running—and losing—as a Dem.

Harold Ford is exactly what is wrong with politics - no core beliefs, no core values. Just pure naked blind ambition and ego.

Hmm, who else seems like that?

Oh, yes, the guy who was pushing Ford to run because he hates Kirsten Gillibrand and thought it would help his 2012 presidential bid if he could knock her off and have an ally in the Senate:

NEW YORK — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he thinks Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (KUR'-stehn JIHL'-uh-brand) could have been defeated by either one of the people who are no longer considering running this year.

Bloomberg also said New Yorkers would have been "better off" with more choices.

Both Harold Ford Jr. and Mortimer Zuckerman said this week they had decided not to run. Ford was considering challenging Gillibrand in the Democratic primary and Zuckerman was looking at running on the Republican line.

The billionaire mayor is friends with Zuckerman, a real estate mogul and newspaper publisher. And a few of aides were helping former Tennesee Congressman Ford in his exploratory effort.

Yeah, that guy is the worst of what modern politics offers these days too.

Pure ego, billions of dollars he can use to buy office and use to get what he wants for himself and his cronies.

Only he looks like he hasn't gotten the ally in the Senate he wants.

But I'm sure he'll keep trying.

There must be many other Harold Fords out there, ready to be bought at a moment's notice to do Bloomberg's (or Karl Rove's) bidding.

We Won't Have Helicopter Harold To Kick Around Anymore

Aww, too bad:

Under intense pressure from Democratic Party officials, Harold E. Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman, has decided not to challenge Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand in the primary this fall.

He has told friends that, while he is convinced he could prevail against Ms. Gillibrand, he feared the winner of the primary would have little money and remain highly vulnerable to a well-financed Republican challenger at a time when the Democratic party controls the Senate by a slim majority.

Oh, please.

Ford decided not to run because a) he's got a tax problem b) his roll-out campaign was one of the most inept I've ever seen c) Gillibrand outpolls him by 27 points and d) he gets this kind of reception when he goes to talk to Democrats on the stump:

This did not go well for Harold. If he had supporters, it was not evident. Many people held picket signs, with words like "Anti-gay liar," "Liar," and "Snakeoil Harold." If not for the efforts of organizers, it would have devolved into a real scene.

The loudest applause came when Lt. Dan Choi expressed support for incumbent Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. He told Ford he seemed to be asking our community to "fire her" to reward her for her fierce advocacy.

Ford didn't do himself any favors by asking a questioner to clarify what "Lawrence v. Texas" was. Ladies will be glad to hear the room was equally activated when Ford tried to distance himself from his pro-life past.

The session was brief, lasting just 20 minutes. It appeared to be cut short when the room burst out in chants of:
"Anti-choice, anti-gay
Snakeoil Harold, go away."

Anyway, it's good to see the candidacy of this charter school advocate and corporate whore/ sell-out implode under the weight of his own hypocrisy and ineptitude.

Buh-bye, Harold.

Snakeoil Harold, Go Away

Helicopter Harold Ford had a difficult time in the Village last night speaking to gay rights activists:

This did not go well for Harold. If he had supporters, it was not evident. Many people held picket signs, with words like "Anti-gay liar," "Liar," and "Snakeoil Harold." If not for the efforts of organizers, it would have devolved into a real scene.

The loudest applause came when Lt. Dan Choi expressed support for incumbent Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. He told Ford he seemed to be asking our community to "fire her" to reward her for her fierce advocacy.

Ford didn't do himself any favors by asking a questioner to clarify what "Lawrence v. Texas" was. Ladies will be glad to hear the room was equally activated when Ford tried to distance himself from his pro-life past.

The session was brief, lasting just 20 minutes. It appeared to be cut short when the room burst out in chants of:
"Anti-choice, anti-gay
Snakeoil Harold, go away."

Not a photo-op for his campaign website. Local news channel NY1 was there.

It's been a bad 24 hours for the news cycle if you're a teacher or a union member, but I have to say, this story makes me smile.

They had to cut the session short because the crowd broke out into chants of "Anti-choice, anti-gay Snakeoil Harold, go away."

Now that's great.

That Didn't Take Long

With the revelation that MSNBC talking head and empty suit Harold Ford Jr. files his state taxes in his home state of Tennessee to avoid paying New York State and New York City taxes, the paid shills have come out of the woodwork to defend Ford.

I even got one on this blog.

You can see his jive here in the comments section.

You know Ford and the corporate whores backing him must feel threatened by the tax cheat story when they send out paid minions onto the Internets to leave comments on blogs as obscure as this one to defend Ford.

I wonder who is paying the comment shills - Ford himself (doubtful), Merrill Lynch (perhaps) or Ford's biggest backer, Mayor Moneybags (most likely - he's got lots of money to burn and longs to burn it on his political ambitions...witness the $108 million he dropped on his third mayoral bid and the reported $500 million he plans to drop on his 2012 presidential bid...)

Dunno who it is for sure behind the Ford defense, but let me assure whoever it is that Ford's political career in NY is done before it started.

You know how I know?

Because just a couple of hours after the Ford tax cheat story came out, Mort Zuckerman - real estate magnate and owner of the NY Daily News - floated a "SHOULD I RUN FOR GILLIBRAND'S SEAT" trial balloon in the NY Times.

That sure didn't take long for the sharks to circle.

It will be interesting to see if Bloomberg's allies and Moneybags himself walk away from Ford.

Judging by the troll who showed up here, they're still on board, but you can smell the desperation.

And why wouldn't they be desperate?

When they're candidate is quoted as saying "I pay taxes there, and once you pay taxes there, you feel like a New Yorker," when he actually pays (or doesn't pay, since they do not have an income tax) taxes in his home state of Tennessee, you can see why his backers would feel such desperation.

Maybe now that Ford's been revealed as a Tennessean for tax purposes, Moneybags can jump off his friend and fellow tax cheat Harold Ford Jr.'s bandwagon and jump onto his friend and real estate crook Mort Zuckerman's?

Harold Ford - Tax Cheat

Harold Ford Jr., MSNBC commentator, Merrill Lynch employee, and former Congressman from Tennessee wants to run for Senate in NY.

He moved here after he lost his Senate race in Tennessee to Bob Corker in 2006.

He doesn't know much about the state, says he's only seen most of the city's boroughs from the air in a helicopter, and once explained how he loves to take the 6 train to work at the G.E. building even though the 6 train runs nowhere near the G.E. building, but Ford and his pals in the media (particularly on MSNBC's Morning Joe) and with the money (i.e., Mayor Moneybags) think he can knock Kristin Gillibrand off and take her Senate seat.

No one quite knows what Harold Ford stands for - he used to be against gay marriage, but now he's for it...he used to be against abortion rights, now he says he's for them. Interestingly enough, he was against those things when it was good to be against them (e.g., in Tennessee where most people do not hold those beliefs) and now is for those things when it is good to be for them (e.g., in a New York Democratic primary race where most people support gay marriage and abortion rights.)

And no one knows what Ford is good at either - he won his House seat because his father used to hold it, he's a lawyer by trade but couldn't pass the Tennessee bar, and about the only thing he seems to have done at Merrill Lynch is collect an annual bonus that was paid for with TARP money.

Nonetheless, Ford and his friends think he deserves to be a senator from New York.

After all, he's got some very corporate-friendly politics that they like and frankly, he's happy to vote any old way they want him to since he holds no core beliefs about anything,

But today, that dream might just have ended...

When it comes to his shadow run for Senate, Harold Ford is a New Yorker through and through. When it comes to paying taxes, though, he's still a Tennessean — he's never filed a New York return.

Ford claims to have moved to New York three years ago, and says paying "New York taxes" makes him a New Yorker. But his spokeswoman confirms to Gawker that he's never filed a New York tax return — meaning that he's never paid New York's income tax, despite keeping an office and a residence in New York City as a vice chairman of Merrill Lynch since 2007: "He pays New York taxes and will file a New York tax return in April for the first time," Ford's spokeswoman Tammy Sun told Gawker. "He will file all necessary personal disclosure and tax forms that candidates are required to file if he chooses to run." (According to Sun, Ford admitted to the tax dodge yesterday at a press availability in Albany, but we can't find any news accounts mentioning the remarks.)

Ford presumably decided that his real home was Tennessee, which conveniently has no income tax. Which means that, despite the fact that New York law requires part-time and nonresidents to pay income tax on money they earn in the state, Ford has shielded his entire Merrill Lynch salary from New York's tax collectors for the past three years. In fact, it seems like Tennessee's lack of an income tax may be the best explanation for Ford's rather complicated two-state life since 2007 — he clearly wanted to live in New York, and married a woman in 2008 who did live in New York. But he made sure to keep a foot in a state whose tax code is friendly to rich guys like himself.

When Merrill Lynch announced Ford's hiring in 2007, it said he would be keeping offices in Nashville and New York City. Ford has said that he's basically lived in New York since then, though he never technically lived here until last year since he didn't "spend the requisite number of days" staying at his wife Emily Ford's breathtakingly yellow apartment in the Flatiron district. ("Moved is such a legal term," he told the New York Times). Ford was clearly thinking of New York's 184-day rule, which requires that part-time residents who spend 184 or more days living in the state pay New York taxes on all their income.

What he seems to have forgotten is that New York has gone to great pains to prevent wealthy people like him from spending time and earning money in the state and then jetting off to a tax haven come April 15: It also requires nonresidents and people who live there fewer than 184 days to pay New York income taxes on whatever portion of their income they earned in the state.

If Ford did enough business in New York to keep an office there, its reasonable to presume that he earned a good deal of money in New York. Now, we're sure that there are all sorts of accountants' arguments and narrow dodges at Ford's disposal to claim that he didn't owe New York income tax until he moved here last year: He could have been paid out of Merrill Lynch's Nashville office, for instance, and he could have received the majority of his income in a bonus that he could claim he earned in Tennessee, not New York. But while those sorts of arguments may be useful to someone trying to get as close as possible to living in New York without suffering the tax consequences of doing so, they're not as effective when you're loudly thinking about running for Senate in New York by claiming you've lived there for three years and pay taxes there.

So what taxes is Ford talking about, if he's never paid income tax in New York? We've asked Sun, and haven't heard back. The most pathetic (and, by our lights, likely) answer is New York City's 8.875% sales tax, though Ford could also be talking about sharing in property taxes on Ford's apartment, or paying quarterly estimated tax payments on his freelance income as an MSNBC talking head, which he might have started paying last year once he decided to break that 184-day barrier and commit to New York. Or perhaps he instructed Merrill Lynch to start withholding New York taxes from his salary when he established residency in 2009.

And when precisely, did that happen, by the way? According to this Federal Election Committee filing recording a donation Ford made to Colorado Sen. Mike Bennet, he was still using his Memphis address as recently as September 29 of last year—98 days before he announced his interest in Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's seat.

If this doesn't kill Harold Ford Jr.'s flirtation with running for Senate here in New York, I dunno what else could.

Frankly I think Ford is shameless enough to continue running despite using his home state of Tennessee as a dodge from New York state tax, but I'm kinda thinking the shills he works with on Morning Joe and the people he has who are backing him with money (i.e., Bloomberg) will run from him after this tax cheat revelation.

But who knows? Maybe they'll argue paying taxes in the state your purporting to represent in the U.S. Senate isn't a prerequisite for that job.

Hell, we've seen Bloomberg argue day is night before, so he could certainly argue Ford's not paying New York state tax is not a big deal.

And the shills at Morning Joe already twist themselves into pretzels to defend Ford when they'd be bashing any other politician as slick and vacuous as Ford who had the chutzpah to run for Senate in NY, so you never know what they'll do either.

But this looks very bad for Ford.

Helicopter Harold

Harold Ford Jr., DLC Chairman, charter school proponent, union buster, and a former congressman from the right-to-work state of Tennessee, would like to run for Senate here in New York.

Just as he inherited his House seat from his daddy, Harold Ford Sr., Harold Jr. is hoping to work as little as possible at this and have prominent supporters (i.e., people with lots money) buy the Senate seat for him.

Don't laugh - connections have worked for him more than once.

Not only did he owe his Congressional seat to his family connections, he now works at a Wall Street bank even though he knows nothing about finance. Can't imagine he would have gotten that job without some connections.

And he's married to a fashionista wife with a wealthy family and lives in the Gramercy Park neighborhood with a winter home in Miami, though he's still registered to vote in Tennessee.

Guess it doesn't matter much when you live in that kind of rarefied air.

What a charmed life Harold Jr. lives - even more charmed when you consider the one job he tried on his own - law - he failed at because he couldn't pass the Tennessee bar.

That's all right, though - when you're as connected as Harold Jr. is, you don't actually have to succeed at anything.

Stuff just comes to you.

But I wonder if he's not shooting his sights a little high with Kirsten Gillibrand's Senate seat.

True, fellow charter school proponent Mayor Moneybags is a huge supporter of Ford and just might bankroll him in the race.

But Harold Jr. seems a little tin-eared to me to be a success in NY.

For instance, Harold Jr. says he's never actually seen much of New York outside of Manhattan except by helicopter when he's flown over the city on the way from the heliport to the airport.

Not kidding - that's what he told the NY Times in an interview.

He also says he loves to breakfast at the Regency Hotel and picks his favorite football teams by which football team owner he spends the most time with.

How's that for charmed living?

But he's never even seen the BQE, the LIE or the subway.

That should work great in campaign commercials.

Vote for me, I only know your state when I fly over it!

Anyway, it remains to be seen if Harold Jr. actually gets in this race (I suspect he won't now that most people are laughing at him) but I would say watch out for him to pop up and do damage elsewhere.

Anybody as clueless as Helicopter Harold Jr. doesn't know just how much he doesn't know and will no doubt show up in some prominent position to screw something important up.

I just hope it's not in education.

UPDATE: Taegan Goddard surmises Ford may not only be using Mayor Moneybags' dough to run for Senate, he might be using his political playbook as well:

Former Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN) may be planning an independent bid in New York for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY).

Two key factors:

* Ford is primarily being advised by close advisers to independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
* Ford's recent rhetoric of being "independent" from Democratic leaders makes little sense in a Democratic primary.

However, it was a conversation with someone in Ford's inner circle that convinced me this might be his ultimate strategy. If New York Republicans run a weak candidate, he could essentially follow the Joe Lieberman path to the Senate.

An interesting side note: Both Lieberman and Ford were heads of the Democratic Leadership Council.

That may make more sense than running as a Dem against a well-funded Gillibrand.

Still, I think he can be dispatched pretty easily.

Just run ads with all the stupid stuff he says that make him sound like the spoiled blue blood brat he actually is.

SECOND UPDATE: Was it Shakespeare who once said, "First thing we do is kill all the DLC chairmen?"