Sources: MTA Chairman Joe Lhota To Run For New York City Mayor

[brooklynite]

Source: WCBS

CBS 2 has learned Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota will resign his post and run for mayor of New York City in 2013.

Highly placed sources in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration and the MTA board told CBS 2′s Dick Brennan that Lhota will step down Friday and is expected to join the mayoral race for the Republican nomination.

He must resign from the MTA because city law prohibits him from running for mayor while holding the position of chairman at the transit agency. Lhota will preside over the agency’s meeting Wednesday, when it is expected to approve a major fare hike, and will resign two days later, Brennan reported.

It’s widely believed his entry will almost certainly jolt the mayoral race

Read more: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/12/18/sources-mta-chairman-joe-lhota-to-run-for-new-york-city-mayor/

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The republicans will now have a serious and popular candidate for Mayor. If the Democrats can't find a way to coalesce behind one person quickly, they face the chance of extending their time out of City Hall to 24 years.

[msongs]

1. presides over major fare hike then bails. bet his retirement package is awesome nt

[JackRiddler]

2. Joe Lhota is not "a serious and popular candidate for Mayor."

At least, not currently. He is nobody and arrives with serious drawbacks due to his record at MTA.

That doesn't mean we won't see the kind of money pour in that could sculpt him into a threat. But that money (and the corporate media noise machine) will find someone to back regardless. The money might back someone even worse (like the police chief, oh jesus). That is the dark age we live in, after eight years of Caesar, followed by the billionaire media mogul and his $150 million out-of-pocket campaigns.

Calling on Democrats "to coalesce behind one person quickly" is the real recipe for disaster. The likely result of such panic-driven haste will be that the media gets to crown a neo-liberal non-entity without courage or conviction. That is monarchist thinking, and it's a losing strategy. I say, let democracy take its course. A primary should decide the candidate after a proper campaign in which the issues are debated and a strong candidate emerges. There's no need for premature hysteria in reaction to a non-entity like Lhota.

[Rowdyboy]

3. Isn't Christine Quinn in a pretty commanding position?

All I know is what I read in the msm but this sounds like a stretch to me....

[brooklynite]

5. Quinn is polling mid-30's in a large field...

...if she doesn't get 40%, we go through a runoff, which limits the amount of available time to campaign in the General.

[Rowdyboy]

6. I understand that some New Yorkers are angry over her 2009 support of a third term for Bloomberg etc

While theoretically I'd love to see a married lesbian as mayor of America's foremost city, I don't know enough about current city politics to make an informed statement. Back in the '80's and '90's I read the NYT almost daily and was a long-time fan of Mark Green.

Before that there was Bella, who (whatever you thought of her) was a true force of nature. She was one of the true heroes of my youth.

[closeupready]

8. they kept a second set of accounting books, didn't they?

If he was part of the MTA's management then, I wouldn't trust him to help me cross the street, let alone run the city.

[closeupready]

7. 'serious and popular candidate for Mayor'? LOL