Bloomberg’s Popularity
It looks like Michael Bloomberg stands a good chance of getting his third term:
A majority of New York City voters (54 percent to 42 percent) now favor extending term limits to 12 years from 8 so they can elect Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to a third term, even though nearly two thirds (65 percent to 29 percent) favor the basic concept of term limits, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Friday morning. [...] Even when the term limits question was phrased a different way, emphasizing procedural fairness, 52 percent said Mr. Bloomberg deserved four more years to finish his work as mayor, while 44 percent said changing the rules in the middle of the game was unfair. [...] The poll found a remarkably high approval rating, 75 percent to 19 percent, for Mr. Bloomberg’s job performance. Approval was highest among white voters (83 percent to 13 percent) but also solid among black voters (69 percent to 23 percent) and Hispanic voters (68 percent to 25 percent).
On the other hand, I hadn’t previously realized that one of the contenders to replace Bloomberg is named “Marty Markowitz” which I think is a great New York name. In all seriousness, I don’t want to come off as unduly in the tank for Bloomberg here. Obviously, I haven’t lived in New York City for some time and have only a limited familiarity with the issues and little-to-any familiarity with his opponents. Very possibly, someone else would be a better mayor. But I think that person should make the argument on the merits. And, yes, “Bloomberg is an unprincipled, power-hungry jerk who opportunistically changed the term limits law when he decided he wanted to stay on” counts as a potentially effective argument against re-electing him. Nevertheless, there’s still no good reason to artificially limit the number of terms to which a mayor can be elected.
61 Responses to “Bloomberg’s Popularity”
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October 3rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
You’re not just getting ready to 5 years from now begin arguing against presidential term limits, are you?
Obama ‘16, he deserves another four years to finish his work as President!! Heh.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Look, “sometimes a bad mayor, due to incumbent entrenchment effects, will win another term over a candidate who would be better” counts as a good reason to artificially limit the number of terms. Maybe you think the costs of such a policy are greater than its benefits, but you need to be arguing about that instead of saying there is no good reason.
Also, do you mean to say you didn’t know the name of the Brooklyn Borough President, or that you didn’t realize he might run for mayor? A quick google news search suggests he doesn’t make national news as often as I’d imagined he does, but his New Yorker profile got plenty of attention when it came out.
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
The entrenchment isn’t just of incumbent but, perhaps more importantly, the people he appoints, at high levels and low. How would you have liked the DLC to have been a bigger power in the unseen parts of the Democratic party?
October 3rd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
There’s also a serious precommitment problem with changing term limits that effect current office holders, as I alluded to with a comment about Ulysses in the last bloomberg thread and then thought was clever enough to repeat at my own blog. Once one decides that in certain circumstances a skill set and a problem come together such that an officeholder must stay in office past the then existing term limit, no future term limit has any bite because the same argument always applies.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Personally, I think term limits stink. I think they’re a terrible idea for legislators and I think that even for governor and president they’re unnecessary and even anti-democratic.
Honestly, if we didn’t have presidential term limits, I highly doubt anyone would manage to stay in there for life — presidents have a rough time and given all the focus and the division of power, the trend is for a president’s power to LESSEN over time. FDR won with a smaller share of the vote in both 1940 and 1944. For an overseas example, British prime ministers rarely stay in power for more than 10 years (and are then usually hounded out). If we didn’t have term limits, my guess is we’d have elected Bill Clinton to a third term and that would have been that. I don’t think any other postwar president would have run for a third term. Eisenhower didn’t want to. Reagan was old and senile. Kennedy might have had he lived, but he didn’t so it’s sort of pointless to speculate.
That said, I think there’s a case to be made for term limits for mayors — local government is far more opaque and based on patronage than either the presidency or governorships are. And it tends to be smaller. In short, it seems like its easier for a mayor to entrench him or herself in power in a city. That can be bad (think Coleman Young). Or you could have the Daleys. Yeah, they’re both dicks. But in spite of the corruption and cronyism of Chicago, it’s been one of the best-run and most successful major cities in America under the younger Daley.
October 3rd, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Bloomberg is a popular mayor, Matt, but if you’d actually examine his Manhattan-centric policies and how they shape the lives of New Yorkers you’d see a lot of discontent brewing beneath the surface. The real shitty thing here is that he’s trying to deny voters the opportunity to either repeal or (far more likely) affirm term limits. He truly does see himself as a benevolent monarch.
Marty Markowitz, by the way, is a fabulous borough president but the job is mostly a figurehead position. The self-described “Mr. Brooklyn” presides over photo-ops: school openings, cultural fairs, Coney Island hot-dog competitions, etc. He’s a vivid personification of Brooklyn’s renaissance but I can’t imagine he could manage the complex job of running the city, much as I like him. And I say this as someone whose spouse has worked in NYC government for fifteen years.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Here’s a good reason:
Rudy Guiliani
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:07 pm
If Senator Osama is elected, he can solve the problem by appointing Bloomberg Treasury Secretary.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Marty Markowitz is a lovable buffoon, who should be kept as far away as possible from the mayor’s office at all times, and particularly during an economic downturn.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:39 pm
Yes, there is.
The advantages of incumbency (particularly to a politician willing to wield the apparatus of governance in his own electoral interest rather than the public’s) are too great to permit a fair democratic choice. A bad mayor may entrench and win over an otherwise superior candidate. It is this road that gives us the big-city “Boss” mayors. It the absence of term limits, rather than their presence that is corrosive and undemocratic.
Now, I see no great reason to prefer an 8 year limit to a 12 year one; however, I do have a problem with having an incumbent leverage the advantage of office to change the rules that will apply to his reelection (and especially in such a way as will apply only to him!).
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Very possibly, someone else would be a better mayor.
Someone probably would, but not any of the people who are running.
Anthony Weiner? Erratic publicity hound with no executive experience and a ‘Hillary Clinton problem’ — an undeserved reputation as a liberal that would lead him to move either further to the the right than his already centrist instincts.
Bill Thompson? A moderately competent, moderately honest, profundly risk-averse product of the old Democratic machine.
Betsy Gotbaum? A time-server without an idea in her head; she might be marginally better for the schools than Bloomberg, and would probably be better for public employees, but she’s got no base and won’t win a Democratic primary in a million years.
Chris Quinn? Every bit as much a creature of Manhattan real estate as Bloomberg, but without his occasional Nixon-goes-to-China independence; also has a horrible temper and can’t hold onto capable staff, one area where our current Mayor has done quite well. Admittedly a gay Mayor would be cool, tho.
Marty Markowitz? Just kill me now.
As a leftist I’m not thrilled by the idea of a third Bloomberg term but as a New Yorker I’m immensely relieved.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I’m pretty sure New Yorkers would like to have the city money Bloomberg ($1 billion+) wasted on the new ballparks back in the coffers for things like infrastructure improvements to subways and schools. If Bloomberg got his way he would have spend another billion or so on the 2012 Olympics. Bloomberg’s well-publicized concerns about global warming don’t seem to translate into a development plan that takes global warming into account. Bloomberg’s well-publicized crusade for better health seems to stop at banning transfat, not funding city hospitals. Bloomberg’s best quality is he’s not a racist asshole like Giuliani. Other than that, he’s exactly the freaking same. The guy is an autocrat. I don’t think that’s ever a good quality in a public official.
October 3rd, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I’d agree with commenter #2, though there are certainly some arguments against term limits (experience, no one else wants to do the job). As a rule, I’d say the lower-level the office is and the less power it holds, the more likely there shouldn’t be term limits. County coroner? No limits. Mayor of a major American city? Too much potential for corruption and the political machine to take hold.
#5 is probably right about presidential term limits, but congressional limits seem nice because it would give people a time limit to get things done, rather than becoming a parasite off the national system.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Bloomberg’s well-publicized crusade for better health seems to stop at banning transfat, not funding city hospitals.
In the real world, city spending on public hospitals has increased dramatically under Bloomberg.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Nevertheless, there’s still no good reason to artificially limit the number of terms to which a mayor can be elected.
Why doesn’t that apply to other offices as well? Why can’t Clinton have been re-elected to a 3rd term? Under your thinking, why can’t Bush run for a 3rd term? The only thing prohibiting it is that not enough state legislatures would agree to the Constitutional change, since enough Blue Dogs would likely vote for the change in Congress.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Lemuel, I actually think you aren’t being harsh enough about Weiner and don’t really know much about Council Speaker Quinn, I would nevertheless prefer that Weiner, Thompson, or fucking Ray Kelly become mayor than allow this absurd rule change. Or maybe another wise billionaire worried about his legacy will suddenly appear on the horizon. We have 400 to work with, though fewer once hack republicans are eliminated.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I second Milo’s comment. Rudy tried this at the end of his 2nd term. Luckily it didn’t work.
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:19 pm
“No good reason” for term limits? I think, given the advantages inherent in incumbency (not just in this case), there is certainly some good reasons for mandated turnover in elected offices. To put it (over)simply, does the good done by ousting “poor” incumbents outweigh the harm done by ousting “good” ones?
Regardless of Bloomberg’s particular case, would mandated turnover amongst our elected officials generally beneficial?
October 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 pm
What Lampwick and Lemuel Pitkin said.
I’m opposed to term limits as a general principle, but seeing as each and every one of Bloomberg’s possible successors is laughably incompenent party hack (and I will single out Marty Markowitz, in particular, who is best known for being the Mouth of Sauron, faithfully enunciating emanations from Bruce Ratner’s Brooklyn Yards Dark Tower), I say let Bloomberg stay on another term.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Bloomberg’s increased Health and Hospitals Corporation spending is an accounting anomaly that comes from Medicaid and Medicare enrollment and debt service. Discretionary or unrestricted city investment is being zeroed out as of 2009. City hospitals used to be a stand alone health care system and could be again. If you want to credit Bloomberg for making HHC the equivalent of a well-run HMO you can but that’s about payments and insurance, not providing care. The City of San Francisco is trying to provide universal access to care while the City of New York is focused on improving the bond rating of HHC.
I don’t call that leadership.
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Thing is, joejoejoe, none of the alternatives is going to provide universal health care either. And they won’t even improve HHC’s bond rating.
The sad fact is we’ve got a really thin bench here. Now if it were Jerry Nadler running for Mayor from his seat in Congress, or Jose Serrano, or Liz Krueger from hers in the State Senate, it might be a different story. But given the field we’ve got, a highly competent, honest technocrat is the best we’re getting. For now, anyway.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:50 am
No problem with abolishing term limits. But like Congressional pay hikes, let the change start with the NEXT Congress, the NEXT mayor, or NEXT whatever — not with the rule-changer(s).
October 4th, 2008 at 12:57 am
Here’s an idea: instead of hard term limits set things so if someone wants a third term (or whatever the over the limit would be) then they need a supermajority.
Bloomberg did a good job dealing with the downturn after 9/11, I wouldn’t be upset to see him in the mayor’s office for this upcoming recession from hell. Stupid finance industry dependent economy…
October 4th, 2008 at 1:17 am
Bloomberg = Chavez/Morales. Except that when Bloomberg wants to change term limits it’s pro-democracy and when brown people want to change term limits it’s communism.
October 4th, 2008 at 9:12 am
After the previous guys we had there, Guiliani, Dinkins, Koch, Bloomberg stands out as a completely drama free mayor. He actually governs, doesn’t grandstand, doesn’t have cronies, doesn’t bash opponents. I wouldn’t be unhappy at all to have him in for the next eight years. However, precisely because of the types of egos and hacks that New York seems to attract, I would want to keep term limits on the books – if only to protect New Yorkers from themselves.
October 4th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Marty Markowitz is a Brooklyn institution and has said that if term limits are lifted he will run (and win) for another term as Brooklyn Borough President, the job he was born to hold.
October 4th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Thinking about this – I have to say I don’t know. I don’t think Bloomberg really has very good Politica skills (the embarssing 3rd party trial ballon) A year is a lifetime in politics and if things get as bad as they look to get – it could be a Republican billionare who made his money off of wall street just might not be the flavor of the month by then.
October 4th, 2008 at 9:58 am
I really don’t understand, Matt, why you continue to act as if you can’t distinguish between whether term limits themselves are a good idea and whether the method by which Bloomberg is overturning these is fair. You’re not stupid. It’s baffling why you pretend otherwise.
Bloomberg could have easily put this on the ballot this year and let the people vote to overturn them. I would have probably voted to do so. But he didn’t…he chose to ask the City Council — 2/3 of them term-limited themselves — to do so. Ask yourself why that is. Again, I think you’re smart enough to figure it out.
October 4th, 2008 at 10:32 am
As a former New Yorker I think I’m fairly qualified to take a strong position here. Bloomberg is only Mayor because he rode Juliani coattails and Popularity after the Sept 11th attacks. Now he wants the Law to be changed to his benifit just as Juliani tried to do. We are witnessing a standard being set here from D.C. to Alaska and now in NYC by Repuglicans(Bloomgerg was a DEM then a Repug and now an Indie) and that is “Laws shouldn’t apply to them!”. Just because folks like a Mayor is no excuse to change the rules of the road. I can’t imagine the Courts allowing this kind of Power grab!. When he ran for mayor he knew the rules now he must abide by them. I am surprised by your desposition towards this kind of Political Hutzpa on Bloombergs part.
October 4th, 2008 at 11:32 am
If you’re new to the city, all you know is what it’s been like here, post-Bloomberg. Take it from someone who’s lived here a very long time, it’s changed pretty dramatically during his two terms, and not necessarily for the better. Chain stores have replaced the small family owned stores, affordable housing is only a memory and a lot of people haven’t made the connection to Bloomberg yet, or figured out his game plan for the city: push out out the working class, the artistic class, small-businesses, and the middle class into the outer boroughs using zoning initiatives.
October 4th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
The thing is, if we hadn’t had term limits before Bloomberg, we probably would have seen another term from Giuliani.
October 4th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
“Bloomberg = Chavez/Morales. Except that when Bloomberg wants to change term limits it’s pro-democracy and when brown people want to change term limits it’s communism.”
I agree with observerfrommars on this one. The only reason Bloomberg is considering a third term is that his Unity Party presidential plans went nowhere. And I would expect that if he is offered a position in the Cabinet, he would bail on NYC in a minute.
October 4th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
I’ve lived in NY for 19 years, the last 15 in the city and my problem with this is that NYers first voted for term limits in 93 and then affirmed the decision in 96 or 97. Simply put, voters passed the law and if repealed it should be done by ballot, not legislative maneuvering.
As most of the city council is due to be turned out and few have any other political opportunities they’ve been looking for a way to get out of the term limits. They won’t put it on the ballot because it’s pretty certain NY voters still support the idea of term limits. Now however, because Bloomberg is a popular mayor and he wants to have another term, they can repeal term limits, ignoring the will of nyc voters, and keep their cushy jobs while saying “we’re only doing this because our popular mayor asked us”. Frankly, if Giuliani had actually still been popular here in 2001 this would have happened then, but he wasn’t so it didn’t. The power of incumbency in local elections should not be taken lightly.
October 4th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
How about 6 terms for the house and 2 for the senate? (12 years to screw things up!
October 5th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
County coroner? No limits
I don’t think he’s elected, (and he’s more of state level anyway) but I give you Dr Steven Hayne courtesy of Radley Balko.
October 5th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
… Nevertheless, there’s still no good reason to artificially limit the number of terms to which a mayor can be elected. …
I disagree. I think the fact that the people voted for term limits *twice* is a pretty good reason. If Bloomberg wants the law changed, let him go through the voters, not around them.
October 5th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Marty Markowitz has more than 4 times the number of consistuents as does Sarah Palin, but he cannot see Russia from his house. Brighton Beach, maybe, but I don’t know.
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