Mayor Bloomberg’s enthusiasm for Christo’s “The Gates” has won him kudos from aficionados of modern art, but the traffic-cone orange display has evolved into a political matter, drawing fire from critics on both the left and the right who see the exhibit as a symbol of flaws in the mayor’s governance.

A New York-based Democratic consultant, Howard Wolfson, said that while he’s “no art critic or connoisseur,” he thinks “The Gates,” from a political standpoint, demonstrates to New Yorkers that their mayor’s priorities are out of step with their own.

Mr. Wolfson, to whom the installation resembles “orange schmattes on sticks,” asserted that while the 7,500 rectangular arches haven’t done any harm to the city, they may do harm to the mayor’s image as the Republican runs for re-election.

“I don’t want to make too much of this. I don’t think ‘The Gates’ are a huge argument for defeating Mike Bloomberg. But you’re talking about the man’s public perception and his image,” Mr. Wolfson said.

“I don’t hear him talking about making housing affordable, or improving our schools. I hear the mayor talking about three things: the Olympics, the stadium, and ‘The Gates.’ If those are his priorities, I guarantee you they’re not the priorities of average New Yorkers,” he said.

Mr. Wolfson, whose firm, the Glover Park Group, is not working for any particular mayoral candidate but does count as a client the state Democratic Party, made similar observations Monday night on television station NY1.

To the editor of City Journal, Myron Magnet, the installation is “oppressive, claustrophobic,” and reminiscent of some of Mr. Bloomberg’s policies.

“Like the riot police’s plastic shields and shiny helmets,” he wrote on City Journal’s Web site, “their materials proclaim Industrial Man’s brute mastery over the elements, producing by unimaginably powerful forces, in white-hot furnaces and giant petrochemical vats that only legions of technicians could design and run, the steel and nylon that shoulders aside the trees and sky.”

And the mayor “comes in and knows what’s right for everyone; he assumes his prejudices are holy writ,” Mr. Magnet said. He pointed to Mr. Bloomberg’s ban on smoking in restaurants and bars as one example. Another, he said, is how the billionaire mayor “is rich enough so he doesn’t mind paying taxes, but thinks every other New Yorker should pay as much as he cares to give away.”

Mr. Magnet also wrote of “The Gates” as a likely precursor to future intrusions of Mr. Bloomberg’s ego onto the New York landscape. “The mayor’s participation in this imposition on New Yorkers is kind of a dress rehearsal of what’s going to be his next undemocratic imposition – namely, the stadium,” Mr. Magnet said.

Mr. Magnet, like Mr. Wolfson, also felt that the focus on “The Gates” reflected the mayor’s misguided priorities. “Of all the problems New York has at this minute, that’s not at the top of his list,” Mr. Magnet said. “It’s government by whim.”

“The Gates,” he said, were “one big, giant, orange symbol of that.”

They were also a symbol of how the mayor sees his politics, Mr. Magnet said.

“This mayor seems to pride himself on his advanced tastes in art, just as he prides himself on progressive and advanced politics,” Mr. Magnet said. “The fact is, this is not progressive. It is not life-enhancing. It does not speak of the liberty of the individual. Like so much of modern architecture, it speaks of some totalitarian system, be it corporate or state bureaucracy, in the face of which the individual is just a small cog in a great machine. It says, ‘By God, you will go where Mr. and Mrs. Christo lead you.’ “

Another of Mr. Bloomberg’s critics and a Republican rival, Thomas Ognibene, said he wished Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude – and the mayor – had led “Gates”-watchers to the outer boroughs.

“They probably should’ve put it in some other location to attract attention to the outer boroughs – maybe along the Brooklyn waterfront,” Mr. Ognibene, a former City Council minority leader from Queens, said.

Having the exhibit – the value of which Mr. Ognibene found questionable – in Central Park, the mayoral candidate said, “does reflect the psychology of the mayor and many of those that support him, that the only things cultural in New York happen in Manhattan.”

Mr. Ognibene said that putting “The Gates” along the Brooklyn waterfront would “say that New York is more expansive, the project would’ve had more bona fides, people would’ve had to ride the subway to get to it.

“I think it absolutely reflects the psychology of the Manhattan liberal Democrat; it’s classic Michael Bloomberg. … It says that if it doesn’t happen in Central Park, it’s not worth happening, and that’s a sad thing,” Mr. Ognibene said.

Defenders of the mayor, however, say that while the Bloomberg administration gave Christo permission to put “The Gates” in Central Park, the location was selected by the artists.

To a New York Post columnist, John Podhoretz, the very viability of Central Park as a site for the exhibit is a testament to the political and policy successes of Mr. Bloomberg’s predecessor. Before Mayor Giuliani’s accomplishments in reducing crime and menace, Mr. Podhoretz said, no one would have envisioned the throngs currently milling about Central Park to view “The Gates.”

“Christo and Jeanne-Claude wanted to transform Central Park. But that transformation has already taken place. Cops did it. Good policy did it. A good mayor did it,” the columnist wrote in yesterday’s paper.

“For me, walking through the park while it’s so crowded is a reminder of the fact that, 25 years ago, people were afraid to go into Central Park,” Mr. Podhoretz wrote.

While Mr. Podhoretz called “The Gates” a “sham” and a “bust” at the artistic level, and a reminder of New York’s transformation under Mr. Giuliani at the policy level, he questioned whether much could be made out of the exhibit at the political level.

Mr. Wolfson’s arguments, he said, “seem to me to be preposterous because this is not a question about the mayor’s priorities or lack of priorities;

it didn’t cost the city anything.

“That’s just sheer partisanship, maybe they’re looking for some tactical advantage to attack the mayor with,” Mr. Podhoretz wrote.

The mayor’s office, too, dismissed the political arguments over “The Gates.” A spokeswoman for Mr. Bloomberg, Jennifer Falk, responded to the criticism with a statement: “It’s pathetic that these opportunists are attempting to politicize a free public-art project which brought 800,000 people into Central Park on a February weekend at no cost to the city. Thankfully, we have a mayor who understands the importance of the tourism industry to New Yorkers at all economic levels – from the hot-dog vendors on the street to the employees at our restaurants, shops, and hotels – who reside in all five boroughs and depend on the growth of the industry to support themselves and their families.”

“The Gates” remains on display throughout the park until February 27.