NYC primary: Some Democrats say they'll vote for Bloomberg in the fall

[Judi Lynn]

NYC primary: Some Democrats say they'll vote for Bloomberg in the fall

By SARA KUGLER
Associated Press Writer

September 13, 2005, 12:07 PM EDT

NEW YORK -- Democrats voted in the city's primary Tuesday to choose a challenger to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, including some who said they expected their allegiance to shift to the Republican incumbent in November.

C. Virginia Fields, Anthony Weiner, Fernando Ferrer and Gifford Miller spent their final campaign hours pleading for votes at senior centers and among crowds of commuters, from a far-flung subway station in Queens to the Staten Island ferry terminal in bustling Lower Manhattan.

If no Democratic hopeful gets 40 percent, the top two will go to a runoff election in two weeks. A Marist poll released Monday found Ferrer, the former Bronx Borough president, with 35 percent, narrowly leading Weiner, a congressman, with 29 percent. Fields, Manhattan's borough president, and Miller, speaker of the City Council, trailed with 14 percent each, and 8 percent remained undecided.

Jeanne Lewis, a teacher who was voting on Manhattan's Upper East Side, said she planned to vote for Bloomberg and chose Ferrer as her primary pick because "I don't want a runoff. It's just more of our money being wasted because Bloomberg's going to win anyway."
(snip/...)

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-nycmayor0913sep13,0,3825524.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

[jrthin]

1. Will someone please save

me from "some" democrats.

[TomPainesBones]

2. Sad but true

Bloomberg is gonna win in a walk.
Nobody remembers his approval rating being in the 30's a year ago.

I knew this was gonna happen.

[TankLV]

3. Stupid sheeple.

With friends" like these...

[donheld]

4. There's old "some say" again

:grr:

[KamaAina]

5. Criminetly. We're looking at 16 years of unbroken repuke rule

in a city with a 6-1 Dem registration edge. Ye gods. How can we keep letting this happen to us -- not only in NYC, but nationwide?

[glugglug]

6. I smell a rat

The city's been going in the shitter since Bloomberg entered office. Fvcking every street is under constant "construction" (with the primary construction tool being a jackhammer at all hours of the night), and the trains are running less than banker's hours, especially downtown.

Who in their right mind would vote for that turd?

[NYC]

9. I know people who voted for Bloomberg last time who will not

vote for him again.

Last time, even before the election, they said nobody ever spent that much money and did not win. This time, even with limitless campaign funds, he has the disadvantage of people having learned something about him.

I voted a few hours ago. Turnout was very poor. Midtown Manhattan.

[Ignacio Upton]

10. Inept local NYC Dems

I live in NY (NYC suburbs) and I see reports of some of the candidates doing really dumb stuff. For example, Ferrer came out with a proposal to tax every transaction on Wall Street (while we need acountability from these people, this tax is the wrong way of doing it, and will only encourage businesses to leave.) Also, Miller has come out against new transit projects like the Second Avenue Subway (granted the MTA is a joke, but so are the nearby lines that have to take in people who live near the East River in Midtown and the Lower East Side because there is no line.) What I don't like about Ferrer especially is that he is too much of an "old-school" Democrat. While a "New Democrat" on the national level evokes people without spines like Lieberman and Biden, NYC Democrats are in the position that national Democrats were in in 1992: the public doesn't trust them with the city on issues like crime, which when Beame, Koch, and Dinkins were in power, was a disaster, or in some cases with business. They see the excesses of big local government and indeptitude. With Bloomberg, unlike Bush he is not a flaming neo-con (although he hasn't come clean about his vague support for the war in Iraq) and see him as a more benevolent Giuliani (you know, without the assaults on the black community or banning of modern art exhibits.) Weiner is the only candidate out of this field who could restore the Democrats to City Hall because it is not "his turn." Ferrer and Miller are insiders who are running because they have the chance. Weiner, and I am exaggerating this too much, is more like Bill Clinton in 1992 (or 1988 if you believe he is still to "green"): a "New Democrat" who will sweep out the excess establishment and has a youthful, middle-class Jewish persona that can win over many of Bloomberg's voters (who happen to be middle class and Jewish/Italian/Irish) while at the same time promising not to run a City Hall with Bloomberg's excesses and sympathy for Bush.

[Lindacooks]

7. I thought NYC was so blue! What the hell is going on?

[RSchewe]

8. I am from NYC, don't blame Dem voters, blame the party.

The candidates absolutely stink. None of the candidates are anything that people can get excited about.

First of all Bloomberg used to be a Dem and has a few positions that appeal to many middle of the road Dems. He is not your typical far right winger. Also, the Democratic party has done a terrible job of recruiting any decent candidates. Bloomberg has also spent a ton of money on his campaign and does a ton of photo ops and seems to be in all places at all times.

I won't vote for him, but that is the sense I get.

There was a debate that I caught on TV a week ago and it was pretty sad.