Like watching the Titanic plot a course directly into the iceberg, political observers from all points of the spectrum have watched the impending disaster of a Bill de Blasio presidential run with morbid fascination. Now, against the advice of just about everyone outside his inner circle (and a few in it), the New York City mayor has launched his Presidential campaign.
After nearly half a year of hemming and hawing, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday entered the 2020 presidential race, becoming the 23rd Democrat to join the jam-packed field.
The termed-out politician, known for his habitual tardiness, finally decided to run after five months of toying with a White House bid.
“I’m Bill de Blasio and I’m running for president because it’s time we put working people first,” the mayor said in a three-minute YouTube video announcing his candidacy.
The opening shots include de Blasio zipping around the city in the back of an SUV — his gas-guzzling choice of transportation for the 11-mile jaunt from Gracie Mansion to the gym in Park Slope.
That’s about as kind as the media coverage of de Blasio gets. A National Review piece earlier this month captured the general tenor of pieces about de Blasio’s presidential chances:
New York is a town that enjoys a good quarrel, but it’s all but impossible to find someone to argue, “I love Bill de Blasio.” Rarely do you meet anyone who can even tolerate Bill de Blasio. If you must have an argument about Bill de Blasio, you need to ask a crowd, “Why do you hate Bill de Blasio?” To this, everyone has something to say.
At 6-foot-6, de Blasio may be the world’s largest twerp, unmistakably large but barely in charge. New Yorkers, for a change, line up with the rest of America on this. As de Blasio reportedly readies a hilariously futile run for president, he sits at 0 percent in Iowa. He’s at 0 percent in New Hampshire. A Quinnipiac poll taken in March showed that, among New Yorkers, he is the least popular presidential candidate in the immense field. In that survey, the former Warren Wilhelm Jr. scored a favorability/unfavorability rating of 24/49, the lowest of any Democrat in New York, that approval rating being lower than Donald Trump’s, which is 28. A different New Hampshire poll that asked voters to plump for anyone they liked for president elicited mentions of Barack Obama, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Howard Schultz, and even, on a handful of occasions, Kirsten Gillibrand, but 0 percent mentioned De Blasio. In a New Hampshire appearance, de Blasio recently found himself in a panel discussion comprising 14 people that drew only six spectators. Rule of thumb for political superstars: You aren’t one if, at age 57, the crowd on your stage dwarfs the crowd in the audience.
Then again the “No one likes Bill de Blasio and he’s an idiot for running for President” genre is wide, rich and deep:
If there’s one person who can unite this nation, it’s New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who likes to prattle on about his transcendent, historic vision and who (polls confirm) roughly nobody wants running for president after he’s flirted with the idea for months, but who The New York Daily News reported Friday will announce as soon as next week that he’s joining the absurdly crowded Democratic field—where he’d be the only one of 23 declared candidates with a negative favorability rating.
I was tempted to propose a New York to America: Take our mayor, please, joke, but 76 percent of New Yorkers say he shouldn’t run. Politico New York surveyed 30-odd members of Team de Blasio, and all but two said it was a bad idea, with one calling it “fucking insane.”
The mayor is the consummate special-interest politician; his latest pay-to-play scandal is for the city to pay an above-market price for a portfolio of homeless hotels owned by a family with a key donor connection to the mayor. In a hypothetical debate with the current president – extremely hypothetical at this point, to be sure – de Blasio would have no moral authority to take on Trump’s own shady real estate practices.
De Blasio, despite his rhetoric, has never been a good radical; he’s too beholden to the local fundraising machine. But he’s also not a good technocrat: key initiatives to turn around underperforming high schools and help people with mental illnesses have failed, with the mayor barely noticing. It’s not clear which path, ultimately, Democratic primary voters will choose, but they would seem to want one of these two choices – and the mayor fits neither bill.
As de Blasio weighs entering the 2020 race, the prospect of a President de Blasio has been met with widespread derision. The New Republic’s Alex Shephard termed his interest in the presidency an “embarrassing quest for national fame,” while the mayor’s own allies (anonymously) told Politico that his flirtation with a presidential run was “fucking insane.” De Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, has said the “timing is not exactly right” for him to launch a campaign. The New York Times, which seems to take gleeful pleasure in dinging de Blasio for everything from calling errant snow days to ostentatiously hanging around Iowa, recently noted that Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has generated far more presidential buzz than the mayor of the country’s biggest city. Even in his hometown, there seems to be only one person who thinks a de Blasio presidential campaign would be anything other than a joke: de Blasio himself.
The human ego is a powerful beast that grows luxuriant in the soul of career politicians. We are seeing an egregious example in the proto-presidential campaign of New York mayor Bill de Blasio, who, according to the New York Times, is bulling ahead toward a formal candidacy despite multiple indicators that it’s a very bad idea….
There have been so signs of any craving for a de Blasio candidacy on the trail so far. His first two recent trips to Iowa have been, in a word, fiascoes (his first, last December, was marked by NYPD protests, and during the second, in February, he was stranded in a blizzard at a Super 8 motel and dined on a gas-station burrito). He hasn’t been listed in most 2020 polls, and his peak performance in any has been a booming one percent.
It’s hard to discern any path to the White House for Hizzoner. Let’s say he can revive his sagging reputation as a fighting progressive. Is he really going to challenge Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris in that “lane”? None of the early states would strike you as de Blasio Country, unless New York chooses to have a relatively early primary next year (it was in April in 2016, and the legislature has yet to set a 2020 date). But then again, it’s not like New York is a hotbed of BDB ’20 enthusiasm. Au contraire, as the Daily News noted after a new Quinnipiac poll of his constituents was released this very week:
A whopping 76% of New Yorkers polled said de Blasio should not run for president — with just 18% supporting a bid. The feeling was as universal among New Yorkers as their contempt for bagels sliced like bread — every single party, gender, racial group, borough and age group polled agreed Hizzoner should not run.
Those polled didn’t just think the potential run was a bad idea — they thought it would be bad for New York City, by a margin of 47% to 32%, the poll found.
The specter of President Bill de Blasio has attracted ridicule, from his would-be constituents and from the media—back in January, for example, the NY Times cuttingly said, of BdB’s theoretical run, that he “remains an afterthought” in the deepening pool of Democratic candidates, “if he is thought of at all.”
Yet none of that has deterred our mayor from coyly glad-handing, a practice that does not sit well with New Yorkers. In a Quinnipiac University poll published Thursday, New York City residents surveyed gave him the lowest score of all the Democratic hopefuls: 48 percent have an unfavorable opinion of de Blasio. And de Blasio’s statewide favorability rating is at an all-time low since taking office in 2014, according to Mary Snow, polling analyst for the Quinnipiac University Poll.
New Yorkers think a congresswoman who isn’t even eligible for the White House would be a better president than Mayor Bill de Blasio, a new poll suggests. Just 5 percent of Empire State voters picked the Democratic mayor when asked who among New York’s political stars would make the best president, according to the Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.
That’s the lowest share among the five names included in the poll. Even U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez — who at 29 isn’t even old enough to be president — did better, with 7 percent of voters saying she would be the best fit.
A rich, rich genre.
The Tweets have been equally savage.
The Dems are getting another beauty to join their group. Bill de Blasio of NYC, considered the worst mayor in the U.S., will supposedly be making an announcement for president today. He is a JOKE, but if you like high taxes & crime, he’s your man. NYC HATES HIM!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2019
I rarely get political but I this is an absolute JOKE. As a NYer I can tell you Bill de Blasio is the WORST mayor and has done incredible damage to this city. I’d 🤣 if I weren’t so 😡 The only bright side is this might finally free us of us horrible reign… https://t.co/YIzb04U4QI
— Grace Randolph (@GraceRandolph) May 16, 2019
Today's cover: Bill de Blasio officially launches 2020 presidential campaign pic.twitter.com/g973kWfGJ3
— New York Post (@nypost) May 16, 2019
And Iowahawk in particular had a field day:
Lanley's the name, and Iowa caucusing's the game. I just blew into town from Cedar Rapids to talk to you fine folks of Gotham about the surefire president-making miracle of saturation ad buys in the Hawkeye State! pic.twitter.com/jTZXu6eB52
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 16, 2019
You know, a candidate in Iowa with unspent ad money's a little like the mule with a spinning wheel. No one knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it!
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 16, 2019
"folks this is your captain, looks like smooth travel all the way to Des Moines, sit back and enjoy your flight." pic.twitter.com/idVOu8XM4y
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 16, 2019
NYC is a snoozefest, I'm heading to Sioux City for some real excitementhttps://t.co/ZQxhOVdJzE
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 16, 2019
if I'm advising De Blasio on a strategy for Iowa, I'm telling him to go all-in on the groundhog killing thing pic.twitter.com/S2BrCb67dY
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) May 16, 2019
As I wrote when his name was first floated: “De Blasio is widely loathed with no national base and no notable fundraising prowess. Other than that he’s in good shape.” I’ve seen nothing from him since to change my mind. A de Blasio presidential campaign isn’t going to be a dumpster fire, it’s going to be a parade of dumpster fires, and all we can do is sit back and bask in the warmth…