It’s a long way from the mayoral primaries yet, but we figure there’s a chance that the match up in November is going to be a Democrat against Mayor Bloomberg. It’s a circumstance in which we’d like to see the mayor, whose personality has grown on us over his first term, in as strong a position as possible. So you just have to shake your head in disappointment when he fouls off on a question as badly as he did the softball that was lobbed at him Tuesday at the Crain’s breakfast, where he was asked whether he would promise not to raise taxes in a second term.

The right answer was “yes, I’ll make that promise.” But if he doesn’t want to make that promise – if he wants to argue about that with Thos. Ognibene in a Republican primary – then the least he could do is go into a tirade about how if it’s taxes one is worried about, they should worry about the Democrats, like Gifford Miller and Fernando Ferrer, who are fairly seething to raise taxes on New Yorkers. The problem for the mayor is that the last time Mr. Miller voted for a tax increase, it was to put through the tax increase the mayor put through after insisting in the first campaign that he wasn’t going to make.

Mr. Bloomberg compounded his error Tuesday by scoffing at the idea that taxes on New Yorkers are too high. “If you think taxes are too high, I would argue you’re probably a little bit out of step with businesses that are coming here,” the mayor said, according to a report by our Dina Temple-Raston in yesterday’s New York Sun. Well, it’s not New Yorkers worried about taxes who are out of step. The one who is out of step here is the mayor. During his term, the city’s economic growth rate has lagged that of other parts of the country where taxes are lower. Maybe he needs to spend less time in Bermuda and more time in some of the competing cities around the country.

This campaign is a chance for Mr. Bloomberg to correct some of his mistakes on taxes. After his slump in the polls following his administration’s gorging itself on the earnings of innocent New Yorkers, the mayor started rising in the polls when he proposed a $400 tax rebate for homeowners in the city. Yet the signal from the mayor seems to be that’s about all the tax relief New Yorkers can expect. He seems to be taking for granted the notion that his opponents for the most part have records that are as bad as his, or worse. The president of Manhattan, C. Virginia Fields, has proposed tax increases of her own. Congressman Weiner can practically be defined for his hostility to President Bush’s tax cuts.

Right now is the time for Mr. Bloomberg to start sketching a progrowth, pro-jobs, pro-enterprise vision for a unified New York, where people can come to live and work because of its opportunity environment and because the government will get off their backs. It’s certainly an area where a Republican challenger to Mr. Bloomberg, such as Thomas Ognibene, has the potential to score some points against the mayor if the mayor is willing to agree to a debate. If the Republicans are to hold on to City Hall, it’ll be important for their candidate, whoever it is, to get the tax issue right in time for the general election.