Things are looking up in New York these days.
Taxes. Rent. Unemployment.
They all are heading for the heavens, and the higher they soar, the lower Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s fortunes sink.
A recent New York Times poll found that just 24 percent of New Yorkers–fewer than 1 in 4–had a favorable opinion of the media-empire mayor.
That was the lowest rating since the paper starting conducting mayoral approval polls in 1978, and it was a fall of 8 percentage points from a May survey by Quinnipiac University, which gave Bloomberg a 32 percent approval score.
“I didn’t think anyone could get any lower,” Quinnipiac pollster Maurice Carroll said.
With the mayor’s popularity so low, political rumor mills in New York and Washington have been abuzz with speculation that former President Bill Clinton might challenge Bloomberg in 2005, despite the fact that Clinton lives outside the city in suburban Westchester County.
However unlikely, the possibility of a Clinton candidacy provoked an uncharacteristically feisty response from the buttoned-down Bloomberg, who made it clear he intends to win re-election in two years.
“I welcome lots of competition,” the Republican mayor said recently. “I sort of recommend that he thinks about it for the next six years because he would have a tough time winning before that.”
Higher taxes and fewer services–Bloomberg’s painful prescription for closing a $3.8 billion budget gap–are the heaviest weights on the mayor’s popularity, the city’s political class agrees. But his penchants for playing golf on workdays–as he did Wednesday–and heading for his Bermuda hideaway on weekends don’t endear him to the masses.
“I feel he really doesn’t care about us,” said Yan Chia, 35, a New York hair salon owner. “He’s going away on the weekend. That’s ridiculous. If you’re the mayor you should be [working] seven days a week. I’m working seven days a week, so why isn’t he?”
Bloomberg, whose $4.8 billion fortune comes from the business news service that bears his name, was elected by a narrow margin in 2001 after fueling his campaign with an estimated $74 million of his own money and capitalizing on the endorsement of then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Giuliani, whose popularity was at its zenith after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was an impossible act to follow. But Bloomberg’s matter-of-fact, non-confrontational style has helped him win some rounds since taking office in January 2002, such as imposing an indoor smoking ban that has banished irate nicotine junkies to the street when they want to light up.
Most notably, the mayor persuaded the state legislature and Gov. George Pataki to give him control of New York’s public schools, installing as chancellor Joel Klein, who led the federal government’s anti-trust case against Microsoft.
But Bloomberg’s biggest challenge has been to find a way to stop New York’s economic hemorrhage. A stagnant economy and the aftershocks of the Sept. 11 attacks have bled city coffers of tax revenues while putting additional demands on city services.
Viewing municipal government as a business, the former corporate executive cut services and raised taxes, including an 18.5 percent hike in property taxes, an increase in the city sales tax and a boost in the city’s income tax rate for New Yorkers who make more than $100,000 a year.
Former Mayor Edward Koch, who steered the nation’s largest city through its brush with bankruptcy in the 1970s, gives Bloomberg high marks but notes that expectations are different now.
“He is dealing with problems that are greater than the problems I dealt with,” said Koch, who was mayor for 12 years. “His overwhelming problem is that the public is no longer conditioned to accept the tough things that have to be done. People accepted the fact that we had to prevent bankruptcy [in the 1970s], but now, people say, `Why can’t the good times continue to roll?'”
No base for mayor
But Bloomberg’s unpopularity stems from more than his tax increases, according to longtime observers of the city’s political scene. As a political newcomer who financed his campaign, candidate Bloomberg said he was beholden to none of the city’s myriad labor and business groups. But that can be a weakness when a politician makes unpopular decisions.
“Practically everyone can fall back on a base–Catholics, Queens homeowners, someone,” pollster Carroll said. “But this guy won without any of that. He doesn’t have a fallback base.”
Those who know Bloomberg describe him as a charming, engaging conversationalist–in private. In public, the mayor’s nasal, wooden delivery leaves many listeners cold.
For Baruch College political scientist Douglas Muzzio, the decision by Bloomberg and other public officials to read famous speeches from American history on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks was “the classic and signal event of his mayoralty.”
“You can bet that Bill Clinton and Rudy Giuliani would have said something original,” Muzzio said. Bloomberg “sees himself as a highly effective manager. Mayors of New York should be that, but they should be far more than that.”
In the Darwinian world of politics, a politician with low poll numbers is like a straggler from the herd, inviting carnivores to pounce. When the current issue of Washingtonian magazine reported that “friends of Bill” said Clinton was considering a run for mayor, a feeding frenzy ensued at the prospect of a face-off that was quickly dubbed “Bubba vs. the Billionaire.”
Denial from Clinton camp
Clinton spokeswoman Tammy Sun said the ex-president is busy running his Harlem-based foundation, which fights AIDS and promotes economic development in poor neighborhoods.
“Running for mayor is not something he’s considering,” she said.
But the former president, who made $9.5 million last year in speaking fees, would start with something that Bloomberg lacks–a built-in constituency. Registered New York Democrats outnumber Republicans 5-1.
“He’s got star power,” Muzzio said. “I don’t care that he makes $100,000 a speech. I think this guy craves the action.”
But Koch waves aside speculation that Clinton has his eyes on City Hall.
“This is just the June doldrums,” the former mayor said. “Presidents don’t run for mayor. Do you think he would enjoy worrying about how to pick up the garbage or how to deal with a transit strike?”
