El Diario Endorses Thompson, Compares Bloomberg To Chavez

Yesterday, the city's largest Spanish newspaper, El Diario, endorsed City Comptroller Bill Thompson for Mayor. In its front page editorial, it says, "After a decade misspent lionizing the rich and their excesses, too many New Yorkers are paying the price for the decisions made in Washington, on Wall Street and in City Hall. What New York City needs is an executive with a balanced perspective towards development and growth, where families most in need are a high priority. This leader is Bill Thompson."

The paper also took Bloomberg to task for not listening to community concerns, like in "South Bronx, where residents feel that the new Yankee Stadium that his representatives so passionately defended left neighborhoods with a raw deal, to Brooklyn, where 40 black, Hispanic and Jewish organizations have been shut out of his administration’s development process for the Broadway Triangle site," and for extending term limits: "All of this is not simply slick scheming—it is a gross abuse of power. Even Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez conducted a plebiscite on his extended stay in power. New Yorkers were not even given that chance." Ouch!

The NY Times reports, "It was an unexpectedly sharp rebuke from the newspaper, and it seemed to catch the Bloomberg campaign off guard." The mayor's campaign had apparently hoped to win the endorsement, though the paper traditionally backs the Democratic candidate.