Politico: deBlasio/Quinn mayoral race like Obama/Clinton

[LiberalElite]

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/new-york-city-mayoral-race-bill-de-blasio-christine-quinn-obama-clinton-96403.html

NEW YORK — A liberal upstart campaigns on a message of change and a break from the politics of the past. His cautious opponent, thought for months to be the frontrunner and running a Rose Garden campaign, fades quickly as Election Day approaches — hobbled by a single vote taken years earlier and caught off-guard by her surging rival on the left.

A rough sketch of Barack Obama’s triumph over Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Iowa caucus? Indeed. But it could just as easily describe Bill de Blasio’s come-from-behind campaign and Christine Quinn’s precipitous fall in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary this summer.

[Agschmid]

1. Good read.

[LiberalElite]

2. To me it

was almost an obituary for Quinn's campaign. Which is fine by me.

[dsc]

3. One would almost think that De Blasio didn't run for council speaker promising to eliminate term

limits. Amazing the degree to which utter hypocrisy doesn't get exposed.

[Beacool]

4. Except that de Blasio is liberal and Obama is not.

[AtomicKitten]

5. Obama is more liberal than Clinton. nt

[polichick]

6. True dat.

[markpkessinger]

7. "hobbled by a single vote taken years ago" -- uh, not so much

Yes, that vote (to enable Bloomberg to run for a third term after New Yorkers had TWICE voted for term limits in the previous two elections) is a factor. And it should be mentioned that it wasn't just her vote, but the fact that she had played a pivotal role in getting that bill through City Council. But what the article fails to mention is that for most of Bloomberg's mayoralty, Quinn, as City Council Speaker, was his reliable lapdog. It was only as the current election season approached that she began to distance herself from Bloomberg -- a move many saw as being transparently self-serving.

I'm not convinced Quinn was ever really a front-runner except in the eyes of the media. Early on, the media had dubbed all her rivals as being inconsequential and lacking in substance. I mean, Anthony Weiner, even carrying the baggage of having been forced to resign from Congress over the sexting scandal just two years ago, was overtaking Quinn -- that is, until his spectacular flame-out after it was revealed that his sexting continued even AFTER he resigned from Congress. (New Yorkers are not moralistic, but they really cannot abide rank stupidity.) The thing is, both Quinn and Weiner had the advantage of name recognition because their names were always before the media. But I never sensed any great love for Quinn. And after Weiner's campaign imploded, voters began taking a good look at the other candidates. And when they began to take a closer look at de Blasio, they realized there was more substance there than they had been led to believe. I mean, here was a man who had been a aide in the Dinkins administration, was appointed by President Clinton to be the regional director of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for New York and New Jersey, was campaign manager for Hillary Clinton's successful 2000 Senate run, spent eight years on City Council, and has been for the past three years the City's Public Advocate. (Thompson, too, has had significant experience in City government.)

Personally, I think New Yorkers owe Anthony Weiner a debt of gratitude for flaming out as he did, because it forced voters to pay attention to the race!