Tonight, the City of New York was bought by a billionaire. Incumbent Mike Bloomberg, who spent over $90 million running his campaign, defeated Bill Thompson by a surprisingly slim margin of five percent, 51 percent to 46 percent. That's almost $1,764,706 for every percentage point or, if you want to think about it this way, over $20 spent on each of the city's 4,462,657 registered voters. His campaign expenditures have outdone even Jon Corzine in his bids for senator and governor and Ross Perot for president back in 1992. The large amount of money Bloomberg spent out of his own pocket has cushioned him into another four years running this city but not without consequences.
In the other two important citywide offices, Democrats John Liu and Bill deBlasio won the seats of comptroller and public advocate respectively. What will be interesting is how these two will work with Bloomberg in the next four years. Liu and deBlasio, both endorsed by powerful unions and many working class groups, are direct foils of Bloomberg, who has come to represent money and big business. Liu and deBlasio have broad support among the lower classes while Bloomberg has a huge traditional base in the upper class, though he has fared well in past elections by garnering votes from the middle class through massive campaigning.
While the mayor welds tremendous power in the city, the comptroller and public advocate can become equally as vocal, especially when the people in these two positions are at ideological odds with the mayor. This may well be the case with Liu/deBlasio and Bloomberg. The three wins tonight will shape up into what will be a fiery four years with Bloomberg continuing his strong hold of city agencies and Liu/deBlasio speaking out against this one-man force that is giving New York up to big-name developers. Looking forward, Bloomberg's win tonight will give both Liu and deBlasio a chance to build up support for possible mayoral runs in 2013. The mayor's meddling with term limits and his numerous attempts to bring in city revenue at the expense of small neighborhoods has unnerved even some of his supporters. Hopefully, unlike their predecessors, Liu and deBlasio will work harder to counter Bloomberg's moves. As long as the mayor continues his forceful management of the city, the two will be there to fight it...and gain some votes in the process.
At least $90 million and 557,059 voted for him, so that's at least $161.56 per voter.
Liu and DeBlasio will play as little a role, if not less, than Thompson and Gotbaum played. It's not like Bloomberg has been working with ideologically homogeneous city officials for the past eight years, in fact most of them are diametrically opposed to him. But it's meant totally nothing, for better or for worse. With voter turnout as pitiful as it was this cycle, it's not like DeBlasio or Liu have any mandate to push the mayor more than their predecessors did (read: not at all). I'm not saying I like it this way, but considering how fundamentally extraneous the Comptroller and Public Advocate offices are, it isn't surprising that they play little to no role in city politics other than as a jumping off point for the officeholders' careers.
I think one of the things that may change this time is the way some of Bloomberg's supporters reacted to his third-term win. Even if the two offices are relatively weak, some of Bloomberg's support has waned (though I'll admit his power has not). What my post was really getting down to is the nature of the two offices, which you mentioned; that they're just jumping-off points for the mayoral race. You'll have to admit that if Thompson won, it certainly wouldn't help Liu or DeBlasio in 2013.
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