The city’s first African-American mayor yesterday blamed the country’s first black president for leaving Bill Thompson in the dust in the mayoral race.
“The president should have done more. He found time to go to Virginia, he found time to go to New Jersey and he should have been here,” ex-Mayor David Dinkins told The Post yesterday.
Dinkins, who held office from 1990 through 1993, was referring to Obama’s high-profile role in two tight gubernatorial races that Democrats ended up losing.
By comparison, the president barely got involved in the city’s mayoral race, which ended up far closer than expectations. Thompson lost by a mere 5 percentage points, despite being vastly outspent by Mayor Bloomberg.
“There’s a lot of frustration,” a Thompson campaign source said. “When people saw how close it really was, there was a lot of frustration . . . These elements that could have done more were outside the campaign.”
In New Jersey, Obama stumped three times with Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, who lost a difficult race to Republican Chris Christie by 4 points.
The president extended his support to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds in Virginia as well, but Republican Bob McDonnell ended up trouncing Deeds by 18 points.
But Obama’s long arm of support barely reached the mayoral race, where Thompson, the Democratic city comptroller, came within striking distance of Bloomberg.
Obama’s endorsement of Thompson — who sought to become the city’s second black mayor — came in a most tepid fashion less than one month before Election Day.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in October told reporters that the president would support the city’s Democratic mayoral candidate.
Gibbs cited party allegiance as the reason for Obama’s support, but did not mention Thompson by name and went on to praise the job Bloomberg had done in two terms.
Several weeks later, when Obama visited the city for a day, he went just slightly further, giving Thompson a shout-out during a Democratic National Committee event.
“Our candidate for mayor, my friend Billy Thompson, is in the house,” the president said.
Further watering down the power of his support, Obama gave similar acknowledgments to four members of the city’s congressional delegation, as well as John Liu and Bill de Blasio, the successful Democratic candidates for comptroller and public advocate.
Although Thompson seized on the lukewarm support, issuing a statement thanking Obama and plastering a picture of them together on campaign literature, city Democrats privately lamented the tone of the endorsement.
Obama never campaigned with Thompson or hosted any fund-raisers for him, and with the margin much tighter than all polls showed, Democrats are now scrambling to place blame for Thompson’s loss.