New York City Takes Left Turn - Election of Bill de Blasio as Mayor Could Be Test of Revival of Liberalism in American Political Life

 

New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio and Mayor Michael Bloomberg

 

From The Wall Street Journal:

For the past 12 years, the nation's largest city has been run by one of the country's wealthiest corporate titans, a self-declared iconoclast untethered to either party.

On Tuesday, New York overwhelmingly elected an unabashed liberal activist and political strategist who is sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement and once spent time in Nicaragua supporting the Sandinistas.

Political analysts say the election of Democrat Bill de Blasio—who ran on a platform of raising taxes on the wealthy to fund education programs, cracking down on aggressive police tactics known as stop-and-frisk and creating a more inclusive, collaborative government—could become the biggest test yet of a recent revival of liberalism in American political life that is occurring in urban areas.

 

The test will have many pundits keeping a close eye on the new mayor's many challenges, including the delicate task of appeasing business leaders used to dealing with one of their own, and of resolving the city's biggest showdown with unions in a half century. "Bill [will be] the most liberal big-city mayor in America today and a lot of people are going to be watching it: Can he pull it off?" said Harold Ickes, a mentor to Mr. de Blasio and former White House deputy chief of staff for Bill Clinton.

                               

In 2000, Republicans led five of the nation's largest dozen cities. By the end of 2012, they no longer led any. In Tuesday's election, the candidate favored in opinion polls to be Seattle's new mayor, Ed Murray, appealed to voters partly by citing his role in passing the largest tax increase in Washington state's history to fund transportation improvements. In Boston, State Rep. Martin Walsh was elected after squaring off against another progressive Democrat to succeed Thomas Menino, a Democrat who built strong relationships with the city's business community.

 

Liberals are emboldened, said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. He said that after decades of feeling that Democrats had to move to the center to be elected, "we're seeing more and more in the Democratic Party a sense of confidence and outspokenness among progressives."

 

But observers say that with momentum can come some obvious risks, including overstepping mandates and stepping out of the mainstream. "They could go too far left, because there's a tolerance for moderation, not necessarily for liberalism," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "If they show themselves to be incompetent then they'll pay a price." Mr. de Blasio has said he has made, and will make, an effort to reach out to all sides.

 

The shift hardly means liberals are taking over. Conservatives hold safe seats in the House of Representatives, and the rise of liberalism in some places reflects increased partisanship on both ends of the political spectrum. In 1982, 344 members of the House were considered to have some ideological overlap with the opposing party. In 2012, there were 13 such members, according to an analysis of voting data by National Journal.

 

In New York, Mr. de Blasio, 52 years old, will be the first Democrat to be mayor in 20 years. "Make no mistake," Mr. de Blasio said in his acceptance speech Tuesday night. "The people of this city have chosen a progressive path."
 

The victory could "make other Democrats think of this 'tale of two cities' theme as a possible driver of their campaigns in 2014," said Jeffrey M. Berry, a political-science professor at Tufts University.

 

The question for critics is whether Mr. de Blasio has enough experience running a large city, and can run it in an effective manner. As the city's public advocate, a government watchdog, Mr. de Blasio managed a staff of 40 people with an annual budget of $2.3 million. New York City employs around 300,000 people with an annual operating budget of $69.9 billion.

 

"I have no trouble praising de Blasio's political skills," said Fred Siegel, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank that focuses on economic choice. "It's his governing that worries me."

 

In response, Mr. de Blasio has said that he has learned under some of the most skilled leaders in the Democratic Party, including Mr. Ickes and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. They taught him "to always to check reality against your presumptions," he said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.

 

New Yorkers rejected several of Mr. de Blasio's positions in a poll last month, despite their overwhelming support of his candidacy. A majority of voters said they wanted to retain Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. (Mr. de Blasio promised to remove him, which the city's mayor can do.) They wanted more charter schools. (Mr. de Blasio has expressed skepticism.) And nearly half of voters support the stop-and-frisk tactic used by police officers. (Mr. de Blasio's criticism of the practice is one of his central platforms.)

 

Departing Mayor Michael Bloomberg streamlined city services and relentlessly quantified the results in an effort to improve accountability. As a candidate, Mr. de Blasio criticized what he called Mr. Bloomberg's aloof management style and stumbles, such as some botched—and expensive—technology projects.

 

Still, most agree the city ran smoothly during his tenure. If key services start to deteriorate under Mr. de Blasio, experts say it could quickly erode support for his loftier agenda items.

 

Some in the city's business community say they fear a return to the 1970s and 1980s when the city teetered on the edge of bankruptcy and crime soared. To ease their concerns, Mr. de Blasio set up private meetings with business leaders in advance of the election and marshaled friends like Mr. Ickes to make introductory calls. Those meetings went "a long way" toward allaying worries, said Kathryn Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, a nonprofit representing city business leaders. Still, she said, some continue to wonder how Mr. de Blasio can understand the needs of business after a career in government.

 

Mr. de Blasio will also face an important battle with the city's unions. All 152 employee bargaining units, representing almost 300,000 workers, have been operating under expired contracts for as long as six years. The unions—which include teachers, police and firefighters—have said they would seek retroactive raises. That could cost billions of dollars a year when adjusted for inflation and coupled with future raises, according to city calculations. Mr. de Blasio said relationships he has built with union leaders over his career in government will help him broker a solution.

 

Friends and foes agree that Mr. de Blasio will represent a sharp break with the past 12 years. Where Mr. Bloomberg touted his private sector background as a source of fresh ideas and political independence, Mr. de Blasio embraces a career spent in government—including stints as a City Hall aide, the campaign manager of Hillary Clinton's 2000 senate run and a City Council member—as evidence he can maneuver through bureaucracy.

 

Mr. Bloomberg, now 71, cultivated a corporate atmosphere, reconfiguring City Hall to look like a trading floor with desks—including his—arranged side-by-side in an open room dubbed the bullpen. He hired management consultants as aides or advisers and instilled respect for the PowerPoint presentation.

 

Mr. de Blasio has pulled staff from places like the progressive Working Families Party, which he helped found. While serving in the City Council, he sometimes conducted staff meetings in his aging blue station wagon as they drove around his Brooklyn district.

 

At times, Mr. de Blasio has been criticized—unfairly, he and aides say—for consulting too much, at the expense of efficiency. "Bloomberg's style is the 30,000-foot CEO model that doesn't work in the public sector in my opinion," Mr. de Blasio said in a recent interview, promising to engage without micromanaging. "You have to be hands on and you have to look at the city from a neighborhood point of view."

 

Still, experts say, he will face pressures that his billionaire predecessor could avoid. "Mike Bloomberg had an enormous amount of flexibility because he had won without the support of any of the major unions or interest groups," said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban studies at New York University who has been an informal adviser to Mr. Bloomberg. Mr. de Blasio "has the challenge of meeting the expectations of many of the groups who supported him."

 

Supporters say they aren't worried. "It is precisely that level of care and that attention to detail and that ability to listen to a wide array of voices that are the qualities that will make him a great mayor," said Tom Kirdahy, a roommate and friend in college. "And it will probably drive people crazy on a day-to-day basis."