Is this a mayoral election New York is experiencing? Or a race for sophomore class president?
How else to explain John Catsimatidis last week, standing before a clutch of anti-vivisectionists and explaining that his family loves small animals so much that his wife once gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dying cat.
A touching tale, but one that broadcasts a startling lack of seriousness in a man who seeks custody of perhaps the most complex, perilously balanced municipality on the planet.
But that’s the way these candidates roll.
They troop to one useless “candidate forum” after another — four top-tier Democrats, two Republicans and a platoon of aspiring bit players — meticulously explaining how they will cater to whichever coven of special pleaders is sponsoring that particular exposition.
Oh, please — vote me Most Popular!
Some of this is retail politicking in the Twitter Age — candidates so deathly fearful of frothing up the social media that they’ll go anywhere, at any time, to kiss any ring deemed in need of kissing.
And a big part of it isn’t trivial at all. Saturday’s group grovel by the major Democrats before the United Federation of Teachers provided a moment of real clarity: The Bloomberg-era public-school reforms will become history, and the union will get a budget-busting payday in its next contract if a Democrat negotiates it.
Equally worrisome were the supine positions taken by Democrats May 5, during a forum at NYU’s Islamic Center. The candidates perspired empathy for “victims” of the NYPD’s anti-terrorism surveillance policies — but displayed not a hint of awareness of the news stories from Boston detailing the FBI’s abject refusal to share relevant terror-related information with the cops there before the Marathon Day bombing.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly would bite his tongue off before saying so, but the FBI is notoriously uncooperative with other agencies — and it has been for decades. Serious candidates would at least give nodding recognition to this sad reality: When it comes to terrorism, New York City can’t count on the feds; it must do its best to protect itself.
But what would a serious candidacy look like?
For sure, one that genuflects toward tradition — ethnic and life-style pride, class envy, special-interest advantage-seeking and so on. Measured fawning lubricates politics everywhere.
But one also that speaks truth to New York City’s diminishing long-term economic and social prospects. This is a city where seven out of 10 high-school students graduate unprepared for college work — and that is not a prescription for a tranquil future.
It is a city where race hucksters and the NYCLU are working furiously to undo decades of public-safety progress; beyond the terrorist threat, New York is only a couple of decades removed from 2,000-plus murders a year. Regression would be swift.
It is a city whose present economic vibrancy beclouds the obvious: That prosperity depends almost entirely on a healthy Wall Street — and its aspiring political class can’t stop talking about taxing the traders out of town.
Nobody wants to discuss these things. That would undercut the pandering.
But if such issues, and others of real import, go unaddressed, if they don’t become part of the debate, then the next mayor will take office covered with pixie dust — but without having laid the groundwork for policies necessary to save the schools, keep the streets safe, ensure the vitality of at least a modest anti-terrorism effort and maintain the integrity of the tax base.
And, likely, without the imagination or the courage to do so.
There being so few adult Democrats, the city has lately turned to Republicans (of a sort) for that kind of leadership. This year, there are two: Catsimatidis and Joe Lhota, a Giuliani-era deputy mayor.
But while Catsimatidis has been swinging a dead cat, Lhota has been, well, just hovering on the periphery of the discussion.
Neither is a winning strategy.
Indeed, the only hope either has of winning is to set out a serious, all-the-hard-choices agenda, hammering it at every opportunity — and perhaps setting the terms for a serious debate with the winner of the Democratic primary panderpalooza come September.
It’s risky. It needs to start now. And it likely won’t work anyway.
But the alternative is certain oblivion — the prospect of which makes trekking about town for those forums seem, well, silly.
Just like the forums themselves.