Thank you, T.A., for injecting some reason into the whole "he just calls himself a Republican" mantra. Wow, are you people that shallow? A Democrat who switches to Republican to win does not a Democrat make. (And vice versa.) Another punch in the face for integrity. And bloomberg_fan might stop and think how the gay members of society feel about paying OUR TAX DOLLARS to be treated as 2nd-class citizens, about the purchasing power of OUR TAX DOLLARS being less than yours. The fact is Bloomberg claims to be pro-gay-marriage and then challenges the ruling in the name of not wanting to get people's hopes up like "what happened in California"? How despicably disingenuous. SF was a completely different set of circumstances where an activist mayor (go, Gavin!) decided to start marrying gay couples without either other branch of government backing it up. When it comes to the RNC convention, the protesters are only one issue under the umbrella that our city was physically converted (every street, intersection, "bus lane" for charters taking Reps to MSG) into a police state. I think after September 11, NYers deserve a whole lot better. Sleep well while you hold your pocketbook closer than morality.

If you had actually looked at all of them, you would have found that ONLY TWO were editorials. One was a pretty straight-on magazine article, and *four* were journalistic news reports. I can replace the two editorials with news reports if you'd like.

Bloomberg might have been registered as a Democrat when he was building his media empire, sure. And he might be more liberal than most Republicans. But to say that the mayor switched parties in order to run is a bit of misdirection: Whether he was a Democrat or not was really immaterial to his previous public life. He's a Republican now, answerable to the national Republican machinery. These conjectures about his past party affiliation are meaningless, I think.

That said, I think Bloomberg has largely done a decent if not spectacular job, and the fact that the Democrats can't get their shit together in any discernible way is some evidence of that. I would love to be able to go into the voting booth and pull the lever for a Democrat I actually believe is up to the job of being mayor. So far, I'm not seeing any names that fit that description on the ballot. I refuse to vote for some mediocrity purely because (s)he flatters the "D" on my registration card.

Now, there is time enough between now and the election that some member of the sorry Democratic lot could present themselves as a competent alternative to Mr. Bloomberg. But surveying the current field, I won't be holding my breath.

Blike, thanks for providing EDITORIALS to support your position.

You don't want to pay more taxes. You want to provide more housing for middle and low income. You want balanced budget. When the Mayor actually found a company to pay $126 million, you reject it. Real smart.

Equal benefit and gay marriage? State laws ban both. Is it in Bloomberg's best interest to challange these as the Mayor of NYC? I'm all for gay marriage but I don't want my TAX DOLLARS going to fighting these causes and according to your article, the 49% that don't support gay marriage don't want their tax dollars wasted as well.

Do you believe in social promotion? Sure Bloomberg used his power to remove members of the Education Panel. Why not? At least there is no more social promotion. Do you get an A if you fail the exam? Do you get a raise if you fail the project? Why should any child be promoted to third grade if they failed second grade? The only lesson it teaches is it's ok to fail.

TA,

To be fair, Bloomy is, for all intents and purposes, a Democrat. He only became a Reep to bypass the primaries and get the Rudy endorsement.

Dr. Memory is completey on the money. If the Democrats can't snatch the mayoralty in a city that went 80% their way in a national election, they don't deserve to be treated as grown-ups, much less voted for.

Thanks Jane! That's very logical. When you grow up to be an adult and have to deal with electricity bills and car payments and mortages, the last ting you'll be worried about is having the RNC in town. Are you against the West Side stadium too? How about the $10 billion deficit he was able to erase?

The fact that he begged Bush and his corporate friends to come and hold the RNC convention blocks away from Ground Zero so that they could effectively chant into the TV cameras:



911

SADDAM

TERROR

- over and over again is enough for him and his lot to be thrown out of office.

Nope, that's not all I've got:

Bloomberg and his methods of improving the housing situation.

Mayor Bloomberg's second-term plans for night culture.

Remember the unitary ballot?

How Mayor Bloomberg handled the Panel for Educational Policy.

Bloomberg violated the city charter.

Bloomberg *opposed* the Equal Benefits Bill!

The strong-handed Bloomberg suddenly goes weak when it comes to gay marriage.

So what do *you* got? "Bloomberg's done a good job" or "Bloomberg's a good mayor" or "he's better than the Dems." Details would be nice.

I'm actually serious. I'm curious what magic good deed Bloomberg has done to negate all of the bad things (and this is just a partial list not including the RNC--I can find a lot more if you'd like).

I know a good amount of Bloomberg supporters, and I asked them the same thing. I asked them to name good things Bloomberg has done. I've yet to hear anyone name more than a couple. (311 seems to be the only thing people can remember.) And these are educated people, too. Then I tell them all of the bad deeds, and they tend to say "Wow, when you put it that way, knowing which day my garbage is picked up seems to be a bit insignificant."

For the record, those bad deeds are not things that I like to see from a mayor, any mayor, Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, whatever.

I sadly admit that the Dems aren't really a strong pool to choose from, but this reminds me of the presidential election last year. Just because I wasn't fond of the Democratic choices didn't mean I should turn around and embrace Bush.

Bloomberg's policies are very strange--his fiscal policies are at odds with the Republican way, because he's too slap-happy about regulation and big-government. But he's also out of line with the Democratic way, because he cut funding for many social services and has a draconian style of governing social issues.

We survived 9/11, and yes, I admit Bloomberg helped us with disaster control. But once the smoke cleared, he started going haywire. We really, really need someone else at the helm in 2006. We should have a New York that is a society with responsible government who knows when to step aside, versus a place where you've gotta watch your back--not from thugs, but from massive, intrusive government that doesn't listen to the people.

Blike, is that all you've got? Come with something with more substance. 400 people supposedly wrongly detained is not make him a tyrant or dictator. Did you get priced out of Manhattan? Are you gay and want to marry your partner? Is your child failing because there is no more social promotion? If that's all the problems we are facing then NYC is a much better city because of Bloomberg.

I'm curious Blike, which one of the Democratic nominees would you vote for?

If Guantanamo-on-the-Hudson is the only issue that the NYC Democratic Party has to run on this election, then they are going to lose this election.

But then again, we knew that was going to happen anyway. The NYC-DP needs to be put into receivership by the national party: it's a goddamn embarrassment that we can't hold on to the mayorship in a city that went to Kerry by nearly 80%.

i understood your point, but do you honestly think the majority of voting nyers see mayor mike as a threat to their civil rights? while i fully agree that he mismanaged the protester situation in a big way, i just don't feel like i'm being repressed under his rule.

True, true. But I'm not talking about the rights of hippies, cyclists or protesters; I'm talking about the right for an average Joe to get sushi for lunch without going to jail (see Gothamist a few posts back)! But it's not really a big deal to the average person, for some reason (I guess most people don't like sushi). The mayor won't even say "sorry"! Seriously, that would count for something. But he won't budge.

blike, i doubt the arrests will affect anything for mayor mike. i agree it was outrageous, but he's hardly done anything objectionable to the mainstream nyer... rep or dem. most people just don't care about the welfare of activists and many think they had it coming. i think it would be an extremely weak stance to base a campaign on.

that RNC stuff doesn't bother me about Bloomberg at all - he's been doing a good job for a Mayor. I lived in Chicago a while back and the same gaff about innocent people and Critical Mass participants being arrested happened under Mayor Daley too, so I can't imagine any Mayor being able to be free from criticism when it comes to issues like that

The first post was about the multitude of topics that the Dems could bring up as points against Bloomberg (which included taxes). I would've been more lenient on Bloomberg if it weren't for the dealbreaker. Of course, the dealbreaker is the mayor's support of false imprisonment.

I'm just shocked that people are willing to ignore it because they agree with the mayor on other issues that are obviously not as important. Unfortunately, history has proven that the Dems can't beat the bulletproof Republicans even with one colossal black-or-white issue. (Example: Kerry versus Bush on the Iraq war). So the Dems need extra issues in the form of West Side stadums, tax policies and Sunday parking meters.

Blike, I agree with you about the protests, but you also put forth taxes as a debating point in your first post. Don't accuse others of not having their priorities straight when you yourself brought up the very same issue.

Innocent people went to jail and you're gloating about how Bloomberg is good with money/tax issues. Nice to know you have your priorities straight.

Republican or Democrat, throwing hundreds of people in jail for doing nothing wrong is such a disgusting disregard of our rights that no campaign promise is enough to make up for it.

Our rights are the foundation of this country, and those rights are very important. How many people have died throughout the history of this country for our rights? Yet we have some people who take it all for granted, simply because they like some billionaire's tax policies.

I agree with Bob Denver. I think Bloomberg is doing a hell of a job. He really lived up to his promises. I know he raised property taxes, but he ALSO GAVE THEM BACK after the crisis was over. I thought it was especially hilarious that after he had to raise taxes the Dems attacked him for taking more money from the public when he said he wouldn't and when he rebated those taxes the Dems attacked him for giving the money back. Do you really think we should vote for these people? Isn't it ironic that NYC Democrats pretty much embody all the graft and cronyism and everything else that is wrong with politics while NYC Republicans fight tooth and nail for us and actually do some good? I can't wait to vote for him again.