The main argument supporters offer to re-elect Mike Bloomberg is that "he manages the city well." I'll clap the loudest at 311 -- I think that was a great move. But beyond offering a service that can tell me how to find the nearest public barbecue pits in over 50 languages, Bloomberg doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
It's fine to be a good manager -- but you need to be judged on what problems you're choosing to manage. And for me, a Mayor needs to be more than a manager...he needs to be a leader.
Bloomberg Focuses on the Wrong Issues
There is no question that Mike Bloomberg is smart and accomplished. But there is serious question about how he's applying those skills.
He focused the creativity, drive and talent of his team -- as well as his own personal financial capital -- on an unpopular, unnecessary, costly and destructive effort to build a westside stadium.
The lack of a Manhattan stadium was not the greatest challenge facing New York. At a time when downtown needed rebuilding, poor communities were suffering staggering unemployment rates, and homelessness was rising, there were other problems to address.
Imagine what that same team could have accomplished if it had tackled one of the city's biggest challenges: the 40+% unemployment rate among able-bodied African American males.
Maybe Bloomberg doesn't see this as a problem. Maybe he looks at a ledger and sees a satisfactory citywide unemployment rate and truly doesn't understand the additional impact such a phenomenon has on a community. Maybe he thinks it's not his job to fix. But this statistic is going to adversely affect the lives of many of the highest-risk school age children; it is going to become an emotional and psychological drain on the neighborhoods where it's centered, as well as a financial drain on the city; and it's something the Mayor of New York City needs to tackle.
Bloomberg doesn't mention the word poverty. Again, maybe he doesn't recognize there is a real problem. Maybe things look OK. from midtown Manhattan. And maybe we need a new Mayor.
If he's such a talented manager, he should be managing to address these vast, complicated problems at the core of our urban troubles...not just managing a failed Stadium project and a great (truly great) city hotline.
New York Needs a Leader, not Just a Manager
The other problem with the "he's a great manager" line is that I'm not electing city administrator. I'm electing our City Executive.
In part, it's his personality. He doesn't want to be the outspoken advocate that his predecessor played so comfortably. He would rather eschew controversy...and does so by avoiding taking a stance unless an issue is thrust immediately in his way.
However, many issues that he could move forward from his bully pulpit will never come across his managerial desk. Gavin Newsom of San Francisco decided it was time to end discrimination against gay couples and began signing gay marriage certificates. He put an issue on the national agenda; he took a lead on an injustice that mattered.
When the Manhattan courts struck down the ban on gay marriage, Bloomberg didn't take the opportunity to push for greater tolerance and fairness. He appealed the decision, citing administrative issues and the potential confusion of conflicting court decisions.
From a bureaucratic angle, he may have been justified. But that was a moment when our city's gay population -- in fact, our city's entire population -- needed a leader, not a bureaucrat. Instead of pushing an agenda forward -- he could propose myriad other executive and legislative steps if he feels the court decision would be confusing -- he pushed it aside.
When subway fares went up, he was silent, noting that he didn't control the MTA. Again, bureaucratically true, but I want a Mayor who will speak out through the city's biggest megaphone about the needs of regular New Yorkers. I want a Mayor who takes the side of his citizens.
That's now how Bloomberg envisions his job. He doesn't want to lead. He just wants to manage...and it's questionable how well he's done at that.
He Gives the National Republicans the Cover They Need
It's not just what he chooses to focus on and is content to ignore. Bloomberg's unique position -- as Mayor of the greatest city in America, at the eye of media, business, arts and celebrity -- gives the right-wing, neocon, theocrats that run the Republican Party nationally exactly the moderate face they need to pretend they aren't so bad.
There is no question that nationally the Republican Party is destroying our economy, our international reputation and our nation's most prized democratic mechanisms. What is in question is whether Bloomberg is really a Republican.
Well, he maxed out his contributions to Bush-Cheney '04, personally helped fund the Convention that allowed them to exploit 9/11 for their own narrative, praised Bush from the stage of Madison Square Garden...and does not chastise them for continually abusing the tragedy that took place here...nor has he particularly delivered for New York in funds or support from Washington as a result of his partisan cozying.
He has contributed to Republicans who want to stamp anti-evolution warnings in text books.
He endorsed Pataki, despite the Governor's role in fare hikes, tuition increases and the lack of fair funding for city schools (and despite the precedent, set by Giuliani, that the Mayor needn't play party hack to a hostile Governor).
And until recently, thanks to the heat of election season, he had rarely gone on record criticizing the Bush administration on any of their crimes against New York: their costly war war, their destructive cuts to social services and first responders, their absurd distribution of homeland security funds, their game-playing with the EPA and the health of New Yorkers.
So maybe he's a "Republican in Name Only" but that name is hurting regular New Yorkers.
If we are going to generate progressive ideas that will take back our country, those ideas need to start locally. They need to be tested and proven in our "blue" cities, expanded to our "blue" states, then spread across the nation. Our next generation of progressive leaders, to accompany these transformative ideas and policies, need to emerge from cities electing proud, progressive Democrats.
The rightwing did not solidify its power by electing "moderate" Democrats. They built up a strong, ideologically-driven Republican right. The Democrats need to give the support to a truly progressive movement that is only going to come by holding our candidates and electeds accountable in our Democratic cities. It's not going to come by electing Republicans like Bloomberg.
For most of the past century, the Mayor of New York City was second only to the President in the pulpit he commanded, in his ability to set and drive a national agenda.
Imagine what that platform could accomplish today: expanded, effective social programs, a reformation on how we talk about taxes and responsibility, the spread of civil and equal rights, the promotion of alternative sources of fuel, hybrid vehicles and energy conservations.
We New Yorkers alone cannot elect a President to espouse that agenda. We do have control to elect a Mayor who will use his role as a visible, vital counterpoint to the Bush administration, and as a champion for progressive America.
That's why I won't vote for Bloomberg. It's a political thing.
