The New York Times last week did a little informal handicapping of the 2013 mayoral election — but it missed the most likely winner by a mile.
Topping The Times’ list of probable favorites were City Council Speaker Chris Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former Comptroller Bill Thompson.
The three Democrats have a great deal in common — most notably, each worships at the altar of organized labor.
Each counts the union-front Working Families Party as a supporter.
And, most important, each can be counted on to support whatever item tops the United Federation of Teachers’ agenda at any given moment.
They’ve each taken union campaign cash, in copious amounts. And presently the chits will come due.
But there is UFT water-carrying, and then there is UFT water-carrying.
De Blasio is the union’s main man.
To cite one example among many, when the UFT sued last year to block the city’s attempt to close failing traditional schools and give charter schools a boost, he not only toed the union line precisely — he did it while speaking as public advocate.
Talk about fee-for-service.
Quinn most recently helped cut a budget deal that saved teaching jobs — non-UFT teacher aides weren’t so fortunate — and then slipped $2 million into the council’s capital-projects budget to benefit the UFT’s under-performing charter school.
Meanwhile, when Thompson ran for mayor two years ago, he collected thousands in UFT campaign contributions.
And why not? As a former head of the now-defunct Board of Education, he was a longtime opponent of mayoral control of the schools — which, among other things, was meant to enhance teacher accountability. And which, not surprisingly, was bitterly opposed by the UFT.
Yes, when mayoral control was up for renewal in 2009, Thompson was nominally supportive — but that backing was conditioned on changes in the law that would have fundamentally gutted it.
So while it’s far from clear which candidate will be elected mayor of New York City in 2013, a look at the morning-line favorites makes it reasonably certain that the real winner will be (drum roll) . . .
Mike Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.