NYCivic - Eight Degrees Below Freezing

Eight Degrees Below Freezing,
That's Not Counting Wind Chill

By Henry J. Stern
June 13, 2003

On May 8, five weeks ago, the headline for my article read "Popularity at Freezing Point, Mayor Must Warm Our Hearts. I used the words 'freezing point' because, at that time, his favorable rating stood at 32 per cent.

Today, a New York Times poll reports that "[o]nly 24 percent of those polled said they approved of the job he was doing, the lowest approval rating for a mayor since the Times began taking polls on mayoral performance in 1978." The story, by Jennifer Steinhauer and Marjorie Connelly, attributes much of the decline to bad economic times, but also finds fault with some measures the mayor has taken to balance the budget, his public persona, and his presentation. (By the way, it's nice to see the City Hall reporter's byline shared with someone you never heard of.)

The mayor's rating is now eight degrees below freezing.   This negative public feeling may, however, have its good side.   (Remember Ronald Reagan's story of the boy who received a birthday gift of a cartload of horse manure and said, "somewhere there must be a pony".) For one thing, the 24% score sets a benchmark to measure future increases. Second, if tax increases are over, a major irritant may fade with time.   If you consider the mayoral term as a one-mile horserace, we are now finishing the third furlong. The election is still two and a half years away. If the economy improves, the mayor can say he made the tough decisions, etc. That was what Mayor Beame said in 1977 in his unsuccessful campaign for a second term.

If I were mayor, I would regard this dismal poll result as an opportunity. (Second chestnut: the Chinese character for crisis is the same as the character for opportunity.)   Aware of the probability that he will not be re-elected, he can therefore do everything on the merits, regardless of political consequences. He should ignore the sacred cows and rampaging bulls. That way he can leave a real legacy of reform in city government. If he succeeds in innovation, it will also increase the possibility that he can win.

Conservatives may threaten to defeat the mayor in a Republican primary.   That is unlikely, but even if it happens, he can win re-election on the Independence Party line, as Mayor Lindsay did on the Liberal line in 1969. Lindsay lost the Republican nomination to State Senator John Marchi of Staten Island, who, 34 years later, has been re-elected as Senator twenty-four times and is the longest serving state legislator in the entire country.

The Democrats will have an enormous problem with ethnicity.   If the young and able Gifford Miller is the candidate, where will minority Democrats go?   Will Bronx Democratic leader Roberto Ramirez support Mayor Bloomberg as he did in 2001. Ramirez does have a Deputy Mayor, Carol Robles-Roman, in the administration. And he elected John Ravitz executive director of the Board of Elections, which resulted in the appointment of Ramirez' liege, George Gonzales, as Ravitz' deputy.   It will be fascinating to see where Ramirez stands in Ferrer v. Miller. After all, his Bronx delegation provided the votes to make Miller the speaker. The likelihood is that he will have one foot in each camp, not to mention Bloomberg's.

The leopard cannot change his spots, and the Mayor cannot become a Superman, a Churchill or a Demosthenes. He has the frame to be Spider-Man, but not the agility (Who does?).   He could, however, become an exceptional public servant, not merely the honest, competent, rational and relatively hard-working and moderate person that he already is. With the present field, he remains the best choice for 2005.

But he has the opportunity to do better than that, and that involves substance more than personality. He doesn't really have to worry about a second term. If he is not re-elected, he will manage his enormous wealth in the public interest.   He has already made his mark in the history of New York City as Mayor No.108, the least political since John Purroy Mitchel, Mayor No. 95, who was defeated for re-election in 1917 and fell out of an army airplane over Louisiana a few months later.

That completes today’s episode of history, metaphor and exhortation. We will provide, unsolicited, specific programmatic advice for the mayor early next week. Any of you with practical ideas that you want to pass along, just e-mail StarQuest@nycivic.org posthaste.