Now that the 2008 Elections is blessedly over, it's time to move forward. A good part of that move forward is the fight against Mayor Bloomberg's despotic (and probably unconstitutional) Power grab.

The attraction of a third Bloomberg term - never mind that third terms historically haven't worked out so well, cf. Mayors LaGuardia (died), John Lindsay Robert Wagner (fixed!) and Ed Koch - is assumed to lie in what is being sold as his managerial competence and wall Street background in the midst of a Wall Street crisis. Why on earth it would occur to anyone to pick a Wall Street high-flyer to fix a mess caused by other Wall Street high-flyers eludes me, but there's that trusty old sense of logic that really has no place in politics again.

In terms of managerial competence, however, there are very solid arguments to make against a third Bloomberg administration. Consider the World Trade Center.

Over seven years after the attack, there is no new World Trade Center. The new Path station is a shambles, plagued by cost overruns and design changes. It is years from completion. The overall master plan for the site has been revised more times than the mayor has hairs on his head (a shrinking number to be sure, but we're talking about revisions to the biggest urban renewal project in the country). The time tables keep on being revised, and always further out. The memorial? Non-existent, and don't expect it to be built until 2011. What has been built on the site is 7 World Trade, notable for one reason: it was the one part of the rebuilding effort that the Bloomberg administration played no role in.

Meanwhile, rescue workers at the site, the same people we all applauded as they traveled down to the pit, are the victim of, to use the proper term, Bush EPA lies, with increasing rates of sickness. Has the mayor sued? No, of course not. Adults near the site on 9/11 are twice as likely as the general population to develop asthma.

The list of failures, of lost opportunities and tragic human impact goes on and on. And apparently, we need four more years of this, according to some worthless human beings (using the term loosely) on the City Council, and a bunch of billionaires who know better than we do what we need in our government.

Update: Dan Jacoby emails that Fiorello LaGuardia didn't die in office. True enough, but it's commonly assumed that the stress of the office contributed to his death.

Apparently, in this vast and shining City of over eight million people, there breathes only one man capable of running it: Michael Bloomberg, the incumbent mayor. In fact, the need for Mr. Bloomberg's services is so dire, so pressingly urgent, that an inconvenient law, passed twice by popular referendum, needs to and no doubt will be overturned. In the process, a bunch of otherwise unemployable members of the City Council will get a shot at a third term as well. Coincidentally, because that election is only thirteen months away, sorry, suckers, the City doesn't have the time to put it to a new referendum.

This is the kind of bullshit we used to snicker about when it happened in some colonial backwater someplace. We used to be - I don't know, back when we had a real currency, I guess - a serious country that held that laws are more important than individuals. Instead, now, like in every third-world backwater banana republic, the Council is likely going to vote to extend Caudillo Bloomberg's lease on governance, and thereby, coincidentally, its own.

You know what that means, right? Not just Bloomberg, but four more years of Betsy Gotbaum. If this happens, and it will, it should be considered as what it is, a legislative coup. It's insulting to New Yorkers, it's insulting to the fine crop of apparent candidates running for office - who apparently just can't do Maximo Lider's job, even if one of them is presently the City's Comptroller - and it should be rejected. If the council has even a glimmer of respect for the voters, as opposed to being a bunch of self-serving ass-kissers, it will be rejected.

Don't hold your breath.

Yesterday, at remarkably short notice, a new group calling itself New Yorkers for Term Limits convened a press conference at City Hall. Their case was simple: New Yorkers decided twice, in consecutive referenda, that they want the terms of their servants to be limited to two, and that nothing short of a referendum suffices to repeal them, as a matter of basic small-D democratic integrity.

Norman Siegel in his remarks pointed out that the current mayor is only in office due to term limits, which prevented his predecessor from seeking a third term. The same applies to members of the Council. As Siegel spoke, he was surrounded by several candidates for seats that were expected to be vacant in 2009.

State Senator Eric Adams (D-SD-20) went one step further and demanded term limits at the state legislative level, saying that "there comes a time to pass the baton". That should ruffle some feathers, one would imagine.

Councilman Bill DeBlasio, the only sitting member of the Council to make an appearance - wonder how that happened - said this:

There is no way I will vote to extend the terms of current legislators. If we change term limits this way, at the eleventh hour, we can't expect the people to have faith in their democratic system. I will vote no.

Another speaker, Michael Myers, an activist with a civil rights group, decried the thinking-out-loud on term limits of the mayor and various members of the Council - in short, of the beneficiary class - as "desperate, despicable, shameless idiocy", characterized them as "an arrogant abuse of power", adding "not only are eight years enough, enough is enough".

Members of the coalition will be active in rallying the support of New Yorkers. There's a web site planned, and apparently, a Facebook group.

The calypso king of the world (the Mighty Sparrow/Slinger Francisco), who was born on the island of Grenada -but lived most of his adult life in Trinidad and Tobago- opened up a famous calypso of his, with this line: “Let me tell you something, about Labor Day in Brooklyn”. That’s exactly how I start this column; by telling you something big that happened on Labor Day in Brooklyn.

Since 1967, the West Indian American Day Carnival Association (W.I.A.D.C.A.) has been holding Labor Day parades (millions strong) in New York City. One of their big events lately, is the breakfast ceremony - usually held under a large tent, in a park off Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn. Politicians from every corner come to this event. In the past there have been appearances from Senators Clinton and Schumer; former governors like Pataki and Cuomo; mayors like Bloomberg, Koch and Dinkins; and electeds at all levels of the political ladder. Even wannabee electeds show up for media exposure, networking, advertising purposes, photo-ops and the like. It’s the political place to be on the morning of Labor Day.

I doubt that the current borough president of Brooklyn (Marty Markowitz) has ever missed one of these breakfasts, since he was first elected to office (senate) almost 30 years ago. Marty loves Caribs, and they in turn are reciprocal (for the most part). He loves to tell anyone within earshot, that Caribs elected him to the boro prez position. He even made a light-skinned black Jamaican-born woman his deputy borough president; her name is Yvonne Graham. She is attractive, bright, articulate and qualified. She is also a health-expert. She is a damn good candidate for any office. And I don’t just say this because I am Caribbean-American like she is. As much as I am a Carib, I try to be objective about these things.

The mayor's batted-eyelash flirtation with an extension of term limits imposed by voters, an extension that would allow him to serve a third term, is drawing exasperation from some in the massive field of contenders for office.

The New York Times leads the fray.

[C]andidates, who are running for positions from borough president to mayor, complain that Mr. Bloomberg’s refusal to say whether he will challenge the election laws has paralyzed the city’s political world.

As a result, the candidates say, they are being forced to rethink their next campaigns and recalibrate their fund-raising just a year before the next citywide election. Under existing law, they would be forced from their current jobs in December 2009.

The New York Sun, rightwing fishwrapper that it is, ascribes ire to the unlikely vessel that is William C. Thompson, the City's Comptroller.

"If the mayor's position has changed on term limits, then I think he needs to be honest and direct with the voters," Mr. Thompson, a candidate for mayor in 2009, said yesterday in an interview. "I think the public is owed an explanation now — and quickly."

The Daily News outlines the mayor's minuet, one step forward, another sideways, perhaps two back.

Yesterday, Bloomberg answered one reporter's question about term limits by saying, "The City Council has a right to do things. ... And if they were to pass something it could come to the mayor."

He answered a second question by changing the subject to the presidential race.

Merely with a view towards entertainment value - there are, I'd guess, about four hundred people running for various offices, give or take - the argument for term limits remains strong. Of course, there's also that pesky fact that voters passed them with large majorities, twice, a position unaltered in recent polling.

Lord have mercy.

I was checking my Facebook this morning when I saw on my main page an entry by Kevin Powell. So I go to check it out and what did I find?

O.M.F.G.

Just look after the jump so you can see all what Kevin needed to get off his chest. Let's just say it was more than just a couple of things.

And, mind you, I have cut and pasted the text just as it appears on the Facebook page. Exactly. I have changed not one word and have not added any spacing.

So take a peek and let Kevin now what would have been a better way to go about putting his message out to the world and US Rep. Towns.

Two key findings in the new Quinnipiac poll: one, the leading contender for the 2009 mayoral race is the term-limited incumbent (38%), and two, New Yorkers overwhelmingly approve of the concept of term limits in general (72%) and for the Bloomberg mayoralty in particular (56%).

So there's an element of schizophrenia in these results.

Asked about the actual or likely candidates to fill Bloomberg's seat on his departure, the field is remarkably evenly balanced: Ray Kelly barely leads at 12%, Marty Markowitz comes in at 11%, Congressman Weiner is next at 10%, Christine Quinn and William Thompson round out the pack at 7%. Given the poll's margin of error of 3.1%, that's substantially a five-way statistical tie (Avella and Carrion, also looking at the top spot, didn't register. Update: Duh. Carrion is running for Controller.).

So look to these five to begin to distinguish themselves. As things stand right now, any of them could be your next mayor.

Alrighty then: Per Azi, Ken Diamondstone has thrown his hat and not insubstantial personal resources into the ring for the 33rd City, currently represented by one David Yassky.

When he ran for State Senate in 2006, Diamondstone was seeking to represent a district that covers lower Manhattan and portions of Brooklyn. Diamondstone lost the Manhattan portion of the district to Connor by 2,163 votes, but he carried the Brooklyn portion by 1,384 votes.

The 33rd Council district overlaps with that area of Brooklyn.

Already in that City Council race are Yassky’s former aide Evan Thies, Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s chief of staff Stephen Levin [Ed. note TDG: No Effing Way], Democratic district leader and attorney Jo Anne Simon, and chair of the Sierra Club’s political committee in New York City, Ken Baer.

Oy vey.

In what is likely the first poll taken of New York City Democrats about the 2009 mayoral election - aside: this permanent campaign business really is tiring - results show an unlikely frontrunner: Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz.

No, seriously.

Markowitz was the top choice for mayor of 18% of Democratic voters, followed by 13% for Rep.Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn, Queens) and 11% for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan), a new Marist College/WNBC poll shows.

City Controller William Thompson and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum each snagged 9% of the vote, and City Councilman Tony Avella (D-Queens) trailed at 4%.

Even Markowitz's wife was incredulous. "Is this serious?" asked Jamie Markowitz after The News informed her of the results. "This is all over New York City, right?"

2009 is going to be an absolutely glorious food fight, our own version of a thousand flowers blooming. The term limits on the City Council alone will see to that. With Marty being as well positioned as he seems to be, certainly, the sheer entertainment value of the whole exercise seems guaranteed.

There are a lot of sponsors of this event, and with good reason.

Did I mention it's free?