Popularity at Freezing Point,
Mayor Must Warm Our Hearts
By Henry J. Stern
May 8, 2003
Today's newspapers are devoted to Mayor Bloomberg’s apparent unpopularity, as documented by the Quinnipiac poll. The Q-word, by the way, is a small river in Connecticut that flows into Long Island Sound near New Haven. A university named for the river owns the poll, which is directed by Maurice Carroll. The Post, News and Sun lead with the poll results, the Times has a sympathetic opinion piece by Jennifer Steinhauer starting on page A-1, and the story is on page 3 of Newsday.
The immediate cause of this dip (or meltdown, depending on your point of view) is the package of tax increases, rent increases and fare increases, both recently imposed and prospective. Then people mention the Mayor's great wealth, his personality (genial in public, aggressive in private), his inability to inspire, his lack of colorful eccentricities, his diffident speaking style, his courtesy to the Governor, (apparently not reciprocated financially), his alleged insensitivity to the plight of the ordinary people in general and the poor in particular, his distaste for indoor smokers, his initial secrecy about his weekend whereabouts, etc.
(If any of you can think of any more grievances about His Honor, press Reply and let us know about them. This does NOT necessarily mean that you or I agree with them, it is just that we want to compile a complete compendium of complaints.)
One problem is that the Mayor is trying to take a left-center course on public issues. As a result, he satisfies neither the far left nor the near or far right. He is trashed in the Post and the Sun for being too liberal. Even the New York Press takes a swipe this week in Harry Siegel's column, while the Times gently presses him to the left. The News is closest to the Mayor ideologically, but is dissatisfied with the pace of reform.
The City Council is far more radical than the Mayor. They repeatedly override his veto of bills which would make it even more difficult to do business in New York. But on the major policy issue, the size of government, Bloomberg has tilted to the left. He sought, and received, billions of dollars in tax increases. While the impact on his own finances is insignificant, the quadruple whammy of sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes and water rate increases hurts people who are less well off. Their resentment of his wealth is aggravated by their perception of his indifference to their plight.
Another irritant is the Mayor's repeated insistence that there is hardly any waste in city government. Almost every adult and many wise children know, from personal experience and common knowledge, that there is substantial waste of money, theft of time, and petty bribery in some agencies that are part of a $44 billion budget. The recent Daily News expose of the loafing pothole crew is an egregious example in the Department of Transportation. One thing I worried about at Parks was our vulnerability to such accusations, because of our far-flung work sites and the problem of supervisors being in the same union as their employees. When the Mayor denies there is waste and corruption, he flies in the face of reality, and this detracts from his credibility on many other issues on which he is right.
The insularity of the administration has been mentioned, but the truth is that they are all that way. Every mayor I know has felt himself hounded by enemies and betrayed by leakers. Actually, the Bloomberg team is quite honorable, diligent and cohesive, but, with the exception of the popular and effective Police Commissioner, they have not yet emerged as public personalities. That means, in part, that there is only one man for the public to blame when anything goes wrong. And, in a city of eight million, some things inevitably go wrong.
I wrote a month ago that the Mayor needs a Karl Rove. However, he will never hire one. The President of the United States is aware of his limitations. The Mayor does not appear to be. Nobody is brilliant at everything. That is why it is valuable to take counsel from people whose gifts may complement yours. But the Mayor believes, proudly and honestly, that what he is doing is right. His election was an enormous personal achievement, assisted by Mayors Giuliani and Koch, the errors of his opponent, and the tragedy of 9/11. Without those events and endorsements, the money he spent would not have elected him. His victory was a pleasant surprise.
Governing is even harder than getting elected. In an election, someone must win; you just have to be more popular, or less unpopular, than your opponent. It is far more challenging to bring prosperity and security to a city coping with modest economic decline, fear of terrorism, asthma, more emotional disorder than we care to admit, a rising tax burden, competition from other localities, indifferent sports teams (except for the Yankees), enormous traffic congestion, etc. (Again, we invite your additions to the list of whines, just press Reply. Ashcroft-anonymity assumed.) To deal with these ills while keeping up your poll numbers appears almost impossible, unless one is unusually charming.
The City is fortunate to have Michael Bloomberg as Mayor. He is honest, decent and intelligent (89% say that). He has appointed able Commissioners. He makes decisions on the merits as he sees them, with little regard for political considerations, and that virtue has impaired his popularity. His prospective opponents are unlikely to match his ability, integrity and sense of fairness. But they may well match his number of votes.
On May 1, his term was one-third over. We are now in the second trimester (or the fourth inning). It is time for the Mayor to think strategy as well as substance. It is not a crime for a lion (or even a mouse) to act like a fox.
Henry J. Stern is the director of NYCivic.