{"id":71645,"date":"2013-11-06T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2013-11-06T17:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=71645"},"modified":"2013-11-06T10:51:38","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T15:51:38","slug":"democrat-bill-de-blasio-wins-nyc-mayoral-race-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/politics\/democrat-bill-de-blasio-wins-nyc-mayoral-race-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill de Blasio wins in landslide NYC mayoral race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: We’re wondering exactly what “activist liberal governance” is. What does it look like in 21st-century New York, with its pronounced economic and social inequality? With the election of the first Democratic mayor in a generation, we’re about to find out.<\/em><\/p>\n

by Phil Rucker, The Washington Post<\/a>, November 5, 2013<\/p>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 Bill de Blasio overwhelmingly was elected mayor Tuesday, becoming the first Democrat to lead New York in 20 years and ushering in an era of activist liberal governance in the nation\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n

\"Bill<\/a>
Bill de Blasio. Photo: Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With 84 percent of precincts reporting results, de Blasio was trouncing Republican Joe Lhota, a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of former mayor Rudy Giuliani, by 73 percent to 24 percent early Wednesday.<\/p>\n

De Blasio campaigned on a mantle of progressive change following Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg\u2019s 12 years in office, highlighting what he saw as \u201ca tale of two cities.\u201d The moneyed Manhattan elite have had their mayor, he argued, and now the 46 percent of New Yorkers living at or near the poverty level need one of their own.<\/p>\n

De Blasio\u2019s administration will be a laboratory of sorts for modern progressivism \u2014 testing whether an anti-establishment activist can effectively manage a sprawling municipal government and lessen growing inequality between the rich and poor.<\/p>\n

\u201cTackling inequality isn\u2019t easy. It never has been, and it never will be,\u201d de Blasio said in a victory speech at the YMCA gymnasium in his Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope. \u201cThe challenges we face have been decades in the making, and the problems we set out to address will not be solved overnight. But make no mistake: The people of this city have chosen a progressive path. And tonight we set forth on it \u2014 together, as one city.\u201d<\/p>\n

But de Blasio also faces a series of immediate challenges as he takes charge of a city government with some 300,000 employees, a $70 billion budget and a dizzying web of intersecting interests. He will have to negotiate several city labor contracts that are due for renewal and overhaul the leadership of agencies, including the New York Police Department, which he has sharply criticized for the anti-crime policy known as \u201cstop and frisk.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

De Blasio also confronts serious obstacles to his tax policy agenda beyond the borders of this overwhelmingly Democratic city, including potential opposition from Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and lawmakers in Albany.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe walks into a new experiment,\u201d said Hank Sheinkopf, a New York Democratic strategist. \u201cHow does a mayor bridge the income gap? It\u2019s a very difficult set of circumstances. The president hasn\u2019t been able to do it. The governors haven\u2019t been able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite New York\u2019s overwhelmingly liberal tilt, de Blasio will become New York\u2019s first Democratic mayor in 20 years. He will follow the reigns of Bloomberg, a billionaire Republican-turned-
\nindependent, and Rudy Giuliani, a law-and-order Republican who led the city as it recovered from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.<\/p>\n

Lhota ran as a continuation of the Bloomberg years, while attacking de Blasio as a leftist, anti-police extremist. The New York Post featured de Blasio on its front page Monday above the headline, \u201cBack to the USSR!\u201d \u2014 a reference to a student trip by de Blasio to the Soviet Union 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

But the attacks gained little traction. De Blasio\u2019s friends say he is at once principled and practical, and that the business community will warm to him as he shifts from campaigning to governing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very reasonable,\u201d said public relations strategist Matthew Hiltzik, a longtime friend. \u201cHe has a core set of beliefs, but he doesn\u2019t go into things assuming he has all the answers.\u201d<\/p>\n

A key pillar of de Blasio\u2019s campaign was to expand pre-
\nkindergarten classes \u2014 something President Obama has championed. De Blasio has said he would pay for it by raising taxes on residents making more than $500,000, subject to approval from the state legislature.<\/p>\n

Many de Blasio supporters believe his victory shows that talking plainly about higher taxes carries less political risk than assumed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people regard raising taxes as a political killer, but Bill\u2019s not afraid because he knows we need it,\u201d Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.) said in an interview before a Monday campaign appearance with de Blasio in the Bronx.<\/p>\n

But legislative leaders in Albany are skittish about the issue, especially with lawmakers standing for reelection in 2014. Democrats control the Assembly in the state capital, but Republicans have a slim majority in the Senate. Cuomo, who would have to sign any tax law, has said he supports expanding pre-K programs, but opposes raising taxes.<\/p>\n

The tax debate will be an early test of the new mayor\u2019s relationship with the governor, who was President Bill Clinton’s Housing and Urban Development secretary when de Blasio worked as a HUD appointee in New York and New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Such ties are typical for de Blasio, 52, who has built a network over decades in New York politics. He was Hillary Rodham Clinton\u2019s campaign manager during her 2000 Senate race, then served eight years on the New York City Council before being elected as the city\u2019s public advocate in 2009.<\/p>\n

De Blasio\u2019s blunt discussion of wealth has resonated with many voters, especially African Americans and disenchanted liberal whites. The issue helped fuel his surge from fourth place in a crowded Democratic field in early summer to head of the pack by the September primary, when he defeated City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.<\/p>\n

The Brooklyn resident has said he would become the first mayor in the city\u2019s history with children enrolled in public schools. \u201cHe knows our issues because he has children in the trenches with us,\u201d said Freddie Sneed Jr., 55, a truck driver.<\/p>\n

Jef Pollock, a New York-based pollster who worked on de Blasio\u2019s 2009 campaign for public advocate, said de Blasio has built a diverse coalition of supporters by tapping into emotions surrounding income disparity and resentment over Bloomberg\u2019s Manhattan-focused mayoralty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat reliance on old-school, coalition politics, where we just assume that people are going to vote for the candidate who looks and sounds like them \u2014 that mold has been broken,\u201d Pollock said.<\/p>\n

On the campaign trail, de Blasio played up his solidarity with the often-neglected outer boroughs. At Monday\u2019s rally in the Rochdale Village housing complex in Queens, city parks employee William Hightower said, \u201cIt\u2019s about time we had change.<\/p>\n

\u201cClassism here is a huge problem,\u201d Hightower, 48, said. \u201cIt\u2019s haves and have-nots. But he understands about the have-nots.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday night, de Blasio\u2019s victory speech was perfectly pitched to the have-nots.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe growing inequality we see, the crisis in affordability we face, it has been decades in the making,\u201d de Blasio said. \u201cBut its slow creep upon this city cannot weaken our resolve, and it won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: We’re wondering exactly what “activist liberal governance” is. What does it look like in 21st-century New York, with its pronounced economic and social inequality? With the election of the first Democratic mayor in a generation, we’re about to find out. by Phil Rucker, The Washington Post, November 5, 2013 NEW YORK \u2014 Bill … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[762],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}