Search
Silver Sez Fuggedaboudit
So Shelly Silver says no to the West Side Stadium, essentially killing the project.
Over at DailyKos, diarist devtob discusses some of the potential fallout for Bloomberg and Pataki.
The question is, how agile will Bloomberg be in defining his re-election campaign separately from this issue? While I agree that the death of the stadium has the potential to hurt him, he has so far been curiously skilled at selling himself independently of the very project which should be his white whale. As he unleashes his ads (just caught one last night during the Mets game - a nicely-done series of interviews with "ordinary" New Yorkers - none of whom looked like the kind of people normally likely to vote Republican), and garners praise for his efforts in education, he seems poised to sidestep the very disaster that should have brought him down.
And with the Democratic struggling to articulate any kind of compelling message, his work is that much easier.
personally
i think that this may even help bloomie. it was beginning to appear that whoever gets the dem nod was going to be running against the stadium as much as against bloomberg. that's gonna be pretty tough to do now. it looks like silver just shot down part of the rationale for removing bloomie at the same time he shot down that stupid fucking stadium.
anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
I don't know Lipris..
if anything it would should that Democrats that defect to his campaign are walking away from the people. It shows Dems strenght in the city and state --and the pressing need to get a Dem that's with the people not against.
I should have picked up the paper I saw, but there was something called "The Latino Post" and it talked about how some Latino Democrats are vigorously supporting Bloomberg's campaign. Well, if they were thanks to this stadium and Olympics idea, they're screwed.
Blogdiva I see what you're saying
but I think this is likely just to be framed as yet another case of Sheldon Silver looking out for Number 1 (and I'm not talking about his district). The stadium politics did some screwy things with the Democratic coaltion - but Bloomie seems to have that effect on Dems.
Good point Lipris
It takes an issue off the table. Bloomberg can still be hit with it, but so far nothing I've seen convinces me that his challengers are capable of wielding the issue effectively.
You're right about running against the stadium. That's the problem - it's not enough to sort of fetishize the stadium as a stand-in for the mayor. It only works if you use it as part of a larger narrative about what's wrong with Bloomberg's New York and what the priorities should be instead. I'm sure all of the Democratic candidates would say that that's what they're doing - only they're really not.
Btw - sorry I missed the NYC kossacks meetup. You put that together, right? Is there another one in the works?
i guarantee you that right
now there are staff meetings going on at all the candidates offices where the topic of conversation is "shoot. what do we do now?"
as for the meetup, JaneKnowles did all the heavy lifting. i was more of an honorary host. hopefully i'll be able to contribute more to the next one which should happen at the end of june. i'm thinking we may do a daytime BBQ type thing. something that folks can bring their kids to.
you better make this one, yo. we'll be looking for ya.
My Suspicion
I suspect that, in the end, the stadium issue will wind up as a wash with regard to the mayoral election. While it's certainly a defeat for Mayor Mike, success in today's vote would have created a whole separate raft of problems he's just as well to be rid of. And this way, he won't have to take heat for actually putting city money to use for this boondoggle. I'm not sure there's really any way for any of the Democratic candidates to capitalize on this over the long-haul.
Additionally, I expect that he'll manage to spin NYC's failure to get the 2012 Olympics as the inevitable result of today's vote, regardless of the fact that the city's chances were very small to begin with (overseas betting sites had NYC at only 3% even before today's IOC report or the vote). The fact is, Bloomberg will now be able to assign blame with impunity to his Democratic opponents "who stood in the way of this fantastic opportunity for the city and its residents." Unfortunately, it will be next to impossible for anyone to contradict this statement, since that would essentially require proving a negative.
Even worse, rejecting the West Side Stadium for now probably makes it more likely that Bloomberg will really start to push for Bruce Ratner's mega-development/sweetheart deal in Brooklyn. Since both Fields and Miller have now endorsed the Ratner/Bloomberg proposal (see this Daily News article), and with Ferrer and Wiener remaining rather non-committal, there may be no way to stop Ratner aside from litigation.
you may be right about the stadium fallout
and i certainly think you're correct about ratnerville. that sucker just might be unstoppable now.
and, i read your awesome NJ gov race over at Kos. you should post here too.
Working Up Some Posts
I really dread the prospect of the whole Ratner devlopment, and can only hope that now with the stadium vote behind us, a little more sunshine will be thrown onto the approval process and eminent domain abuse. But I'm not exactly holding my breath. We'll also have to see what the U.S. Supreme Court does in Kelo v. New London (decision within the next few weeks).
I've been doing a lot of preliminary work for some posts on a few NYS political personalities from just outside the city, but trying to get all the research compiled for those (including some insider stuff never published anywhere yet, to my knowledge) may take a little while longer.
As for the NJ Gov diary, I didn't post it here because it's out of state. If I get dispensation from our host here, I could post a fair bit about New Jersey politics as well (I've got contacts fairly high up in the Corzine campaign).
Go for it!
I have been mulling over this after the Lawrence Lessig article that came out in NY Mag and that I wrote about over at home-base blog culturekitchen.
I think that NJ politics, more so than Conn. or Philly, are intrinsically related to the cities welfare. So I say, go for it.
Great point
In a way it actually gives him a stick to bash the Dems with. Not that he really needs it.
And as someone who is being directly (negatively) affected by the Ratner project, I take your point about Atlantic Yards - now he's going more time to focus on screwing up Brooklyn.