It’s hard to believe that it has been 20 years since New York City last had a Democratic mayor. I don’t know what you want to call Michael Bloomberg, but he isn’t a Democrat. I don’t know whether or not many people are thinking about it, but a Democratic mayor is going to be a game-changer in the whole culture of liberalism in this country, much like Gov. Jerry Brown is having a big effect on the left coast. It’s going to matter a lot who wins the mayoral contest and then how they perform once in office. This is a point that Benjamin Wallace-Wells touches upon in his piece on Bill de Blasio and the New York Times. It’s time to start paying attention because Quinnipiac just came out with a poll showing de Blasio in the lead and as the winner of any likely run-off. So, what is de Blasio talking about? Turns out, he’s talking about “neglected hospitals, a swelling poverty rate and a broken prekindergarten system.”
It is the campaign season’s riskiest calculation: that New Yorkers, who have become comfortably accustomed to the smooth-running, highly efficient apparatus of government under Michael R. Bloomberg, are prepared to embrace a much different agenda for City Hall — taxing the rich, elevating the poor and rethinking a Manhattan-centric approach to city services.
In a city that is endlessly congratulating itself for its modern renaissance — record-low crime, unmatched crowds of tourists, streets refashioned in European style — a day on the campaign trail with Mr. de Blasio is a reminder of unaddressed grievances and glaring disparities.
Describing what he calls a “tale of two cities,” rife with inequalities in housing, early childhood education and police tactics, he promised those gathered at the Brooklyn bar that this year’s mayoral race was “going to be a reset moment. A major reset.”
That would be quite a change from the Bloomberg Era, and it might reinvigorate a Democratic Party that has grown complacent about income inequality.
