To grasp the utter bankruptcy of the city’s Democratic Party, consider the latest competition of its top mayoral candidates. Bill Thompson and Bill de Blasio are locked in a fierce battle for the support of Al Sharpton.
Yes, Al Sharpton.
The rise of Sharpton from rabble-rouser to potential kingmaker demonstrates just how far the Dems have fallen. The pandering to the municipal unions that marked the start of the contest now looks like the good old days.
The desperate bid to please the most racially polarizing figure in New York marks another low in the race to the bottom. With Tuesday’s primary vote near, the candidates’ promises to deliver magic is the New York version of Hope & Change. If either one becomes mayor, his supporters are guaranteed to be disappointed.
The two Bills’ refusal to admit now the realities the winner will confront on Jan. 1 amounts to a Bait & Switch. How to keep crime down, how to balance a precarious budget and how to fix the schools will be the challenges on Day One.
But the Bills shun any honest discussion of those topics like the plague because they don’t have any answers, at least answers that will find favor among the far-left Dems who will dominate Tuesday’s turnout. So the race is a dog’s stew of sideshows and inflated promises no mayor can keep.
They vow to provide more free stuff, from housing to child care to college, but not a single reform that will cut taxes, spur growth, create jobs or make the city a better place to live and work.
Their sales pitch to poor, nonwhite New Yorkers is especially deceptive. Those voters live disproportionately in neighborhoods where crime remains highest, where schools are the worst and where family breakdown is the norm. The jobless rate in some is double the city rate of 8.7 percent.
Yet the Bills offer solutions that will only make things worse. They promise to crack down on the police, as though the brave men and women in blue are committing the crimes. If cops are handcuffed, the gun-toting thugs will have a fresh license to kill.
And by treating the NYPD as the problem, the candidates are ducking the inconvenient fact that black and Hispanic young men commit upward of 90 percent of the violent crime in New York. Any serious talk about public safety must address that astounding phenomenon, which is why the candidates run from the issue. They can’t handle the truth.
To fix the rotten schools, the Bills promise to squeeze those institutions with the best results, including the popular charters in the Harlem Success network. Instead of trying to find the secret sauce that allows the poor black and Latino students in those schools to excel, the pols vow to increase the power and pay of teachers in the failing schools. Rewarding failure is a surefire way to get more of it.
As for jobs, let’s just say the pols care only about getting the big one for themselves. Everybody else can eat pie in the sky.
The sheer ridiculousness of the campaign may have consequences, especially if de Blasio is the nominee. On top of his other wild ideas, his promise to raises taxes on upper incomes is a major turn-off to many members of his party.
Some Democrats I’ve talked to who support Thompson or Christine Quinn, now in third place, tell me they would bolt the party and vote for Joe Lhota, the leading Republican, over de Blasio in the general election.
“If Chris doesn’t make it, I’m going for Lhota,” a politically active Dem told me. She is not alone.
Mayor Bloomberg could also be a key factor. The likely collapse of Quinn means Hizzoner’s backing is up for grabs. I am cheered by the fact that my column last week urging him to back Lhota was followed by the Post report that he’s leaning in that direction.
I’d like to claim credit for the idea, but in truth, common sense is the driving force. Lhota is clearly the candidate most likely to continue the anti-crime, pro-jobs agenda that Rudy Giuliani and Bloomberg built over the last 20 years.
Imagine the contrast. The Democratic nominee stands next to Sharpton, while Lhota stands with Giuliani and Bloomberg.
If the two mayors join forces with the message that Lhota is the best choice to keep New York on course, the Democrats could lose City Hall for the sixth consecutive election.
Spare the tears. They’ve earned it.
Bashing $pitz? That’s rich
I’m hardly a fan of Eliot Spitzer, but the attacks on him for spending $12 million of his own money in the comptroller race are hard to swallow. Most of Spitzer’s critics didn’t whine when Mayor Bloomberg spent nearly $100 million in each of his three elections. The moral high ground is reserved for those who stand on principle, not personality or partisanship.
Welcome to ‘30 Crock’
Congratulations to MSNBC for making Alec Baldwin its newest anchor. Nothing says “Lean Forward” like hiring a profanity-spewing hothead given to anti-gay slurs. Good luck with that.