About an hour before last night’s debate, Bill de Blasio sent out an e-mail revealing his strategy: Tar Joe Lhota as a mini-me of national Republicans, the Tea Party, Mayor Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani.
Promise made, promise kept as de Blasio mentioned those bogeymen in most of his answers. He smothered his opponent with liberal Democratic contempt, and Lhota never managed to get out from under the barrage.
One example: de Blasio several times accused Giuliani of being the “most divisive” mayor, yet Lhota never praised his former boss’ achievements or mentioned that de Blasio worked for David Dinkins — a divisive mayor and a failure who was fired after a single term.
The difference was striking. Lhota had a few good moments and articulated key economic differences, but too often got trapped defending and explaining. De Blasio was confidently commanding, never stopped attacking and added to the sense his election is inevitable.
Still, his need to hide behind party labels suggests he worries about the case against him. The ominous parts of it are his daffy promises to curb the two most successful entities in the city — charter schools and the NYPD.
Both are saving the lives of poor New Yorkers, and that offends the radical swamp from which de Blasio’s philosophy emerges. So under his regime, more black and Latino children will be stuck in rotten, union-run schools without hope of escaping. That’s the price of his change.
And New Yorkers can probably say goodbye to record-low crime and murder-free weeks, such as the one we enjoyed through Sunday. Some will pay for his attacks on the police with their lives.
De Blasio’s urge to upset Gotham’s apple cart doesn’t end there. The best public schools — those that require a rigorous exam — must be dumbed down because excellence is another form of elitism. He would also call it racism, but the huge numbers of Asians succeeding at those schools makes racism an impossible stretch.
Yet de Blasio pledges to attack all unequal results anywhere under the illusion that human differences can be eliminated with government rules and more money. A promise to raise income taxes on top earners is a litmus test for lefties, but that’s the low-hanging fruit. His plans for more spending means every New Yorker will get hit with a tax hike.
Lhota made that point once, but didn’t make it a memorable moment. Similarly, his defense of charter schools and top cop Ray Kelly came and went without impact.
Given his promises of more goodies, perhaps de Blasio believes City Hall has a money-printing press in the basement. So let’s give him a name he’s earned: Dollar Bill.
Not incidentally, Dollar Bill de Blasio would be the fourth name he has used. A man who frequently changes his name doesn’t inspire confidence that he’s got his act together.
Nor does his habit of playing footsie with homicidal maniacs in Cuba, Latin America and Africa. De Blasio’s illegal visit to Cuba — on his honeymoon, no less — reveals a man who missed the big lessons of the 20th century. Ditto for his support for the Sandinistas and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, both of whom imprisoned and killed opponents.
No doubt there is more about his past we should know, but we already know he doesn’t have a clue about how to preserve the gains New York has made, let alone move the city forward. For all his supposed intelligence, he embraces crackpot ideas that failed everywhere they were tried. From the Soviet Union to China to Cuba and parts in between, communism, socialism and every other big governmentism led to human misery and stunted development.
Lhota knows all that and more, and has the experience and ideas to be a better mayor. But the best candidates win elections, and Lhota has only 20 days and two more debates to meet that challenge.
Rotten-apple picking season
Hold that call to the doctor. It looks as if Gov. Cuomo is having second thoughts about his second thoughts.
Amid troubling indications he wanted a quick exit from his Moreland Commission probe of the Legislature, the panel signaled yesterday that it remains committed to the fight.
After noting that lawmakers from both parties refused to disclose outside income, the commission said it had “voted to aggressively move forward” and would issue more subpoenas.
Cuomo formed the panel following a parade of corruption cases, and a surrender would be disastrous. It would mean business-as-usual and leave the culture of corruption for his successor.
It would also subject New Yorkers to a government they don’t trust — with good reason. Each lawmaker perp walk makes a mockery of any claim there is a “new” New York.
As I wrote, Cuomo assured me he was “as serious as a heart attack” about getting the rotten apples out of the barrel. May he have good health and the courage to do just that.
Can’t fix what really ails O’Care
If the near-collapse of the ObamaCare computer system were temporary, that would be bad enough. But the real problem isn’t the computer system — it’s the law itself.
Imagine you hire an architect to design a house. After a year of work, he comes back with incomprehensible drawings and a promise that the actual house will be fine, even though it doesn’t make sense on paper. Oh, and the cost is way beyond your budget.
Do you say “Great, I trust you, spend whatever it takes?”
Of course not. But that’s what the White House is demanding on ObamaCare.
Reports say only some of the millions who tried could get on the exchange Web sites, and most of those couldn’t complete the application. The precise numbers are a mystery known only to administration insiders.
You can be sure they would be happy to trumpet them if there were a way to spin them as victory. That they don’t try gives some indication of the disaster.
And this is the easy part. Even if the computer problems are solved, there is no guarantee of improved medical care or cost cuts — the ultimate challenges.
The problem is as it always was: America’s health-care system is vastly complicated and enormously expensive. But it worked fairly well for most people, with some 80 percent saying they were satisfied. That was before ObamaCare, which twists, squeezes and taxes the whole system as part of an incomprehensible plan to “fix” it.
The law won’t work because it can’t. It fails for the same reason that all massive utopian plans fail: It is far easier to make things worse than it is to make them better.
Get ready for worse.
After you…
So Hillary Clinton gave aide Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner’s wife, an ultimatum: Dump “Carlos Danger” or I’ll dump you. If Huma has any guts, she gives this response: After you, Mrs. Clinton.