Bombs away!
Mayor Bloomberg and Comptroller Bill Thompson pummeled each other non-stop tonight over who deserves to run City Hall for the next four years during the first mayoral debate.
For a full hour, the two feisty hopefuls went to war over term limits, education, pension funds, personal integrity — and even whether Ray Kelly should remain as police commissoiner.
Thompson struck first, blasting Bloomberg during his opening statement for undoing term limits without approval from the voters.
“Can the richest man in New York City play by his own set of rules, while we play by a different set of rules,” Thompson asked during the hour-long debate at El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem and televised by New York 1.
Bloomberg immediately turned the tables, defending his decision to spend millions to air ads slamming Thompson’s record as president of the old Board of Education.
Bloomberg said test scores are up and crime is down since he took control of the schools, rescuing them from the dark days of the 1990’s when Thompson was in charge.
“The schools were much worse then. It was a failing school system,” Bloomberg said of Thompson’s tenure.
Thompson, a Democrat, defended his record, although he insisted he didn’t directly run the schools and complained it was an “apple and oranges comparison.”
He said if he had the additional funds Bloomberg had “I would have done a better job.”
Bloomberg shot back: “You don’t get a medal for rearranging the chairs on the deck of the titanic.”
Earlier, Bloomberg, an independent running on the Republican line, suffered a blow when the 9,500-member Correction Officers Benevolent Association — one of the only unions to back him in 2001 and 2005 — endorsed Thompson.
Union president Norman Seabrook said he was abandoning the mayor now largely because “the middle class is being forced out of New York City.”
That was the same argument Democratic mayoral candidate Freddy Ferrer made in 2005, when the union went with Bloomberg.
“At the end of the day, the question becomes what’s in your wallet,” Seabrook said, trying to explain the shift.
Seabrook’s sharp break with the mayor dates to last April, when Bloomberg threatened to lay off 7,000 municipal workers if municipal unions didn’t provide give backs on pensions and health care benefits.
Last night’s debate presented Thompson with his first chance to take on Bloomberg face-to-face.
With a near-limitless checking account, the mayor has been attacking Thompson through relentless TV commercials that have questioned his stewardship of the city’s $85 billion pension system, his role as president of the old Board of Education and his change of heart about imposing higher income taxes on those earning $500,000 or more.
Thompson has hit back hard, focusing his sharpest jibes at the mayor’s about-face on term limits.
The comptroller has also tried to undercut Bloomberg’s claim to have turned around the school system by suggesting education brass are manipulating the results.
Thompson acknowledged switching positions when it came to higher taxes on the wealthy, which he opposed last fall and now favors.
In general, Thompson wouldn’t commit to not raising taxes if he became mayor.
Bloomberg vowed not to raise taxes next year, if re-elected.