Mayor Yet To Offer New Reasons for Support

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

When Mayor Bloomberg was running for New York City’s top job in 2001, he made pages of promises. He would abolish the Board of Education. He would make government more accessible. He would help generate jobs and enhance New Yorkers’ quality of life.


Forty-four months after taking office, Mr. Bloomberg said he has accomplished most of those initial goals.


He took control of the schools from Albany and started implementing changes through a new, centralized Department of Education. He launched the 311 hot line, opening up government to New Yorkers’ questions and complaints. The economy is booming, with an increase of more than 60,000 jobs, record-breaking numbers of tourists visiting the city, and a thriving construction industry. As for quality of life, Mr. Bloomberg implemented programs such as a ban on indoor smoking, which he credits with reducing the city’s number of smokers by 188,000 in two years.


But as the Republican incumbent appeals to voters to grant him another four years in office, he has not yet given them new reasons to re-elect him. Rather, he has used a multimillion-dollar campaign of advertisements, targeted direct mailings, and public events to explain to voters what he has accomplished. New Yorkers who read Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign literature or see his campaign ads, and even those who go to the “Vision for the Future” page at www.mikebloomberg.com, are treated to highlights of the past – not details of what’s to come.


Mr. Bloomberg’s senior campaign strategist, William Cunningham, said last week that the first term will provide a framework for Mr. Bloomberg’s second-term vision, but he said new plans and program ideas will emerge soon, once Democrats nominate a candidate and the general election nears.


“Mike Bloomberg believes that when you start something, you work to accomplish it. If you promise something, you work to accomplish it. There will be new challenges, there will be new ideas,” Mr. Cunningham said, sitting at a long conference table in the room known as Grand Central at the Bloomberg campaign’s Midtown office. “The mayor will be talking about this going into the fall as the voters make their general-election choices.”


With volunteers and campaign aides buzzing around the headquarters, Mr. Cunningham was quick to dismiss the complaints of the Democrats’ competing for Mr. Bloomberg’s job.


He said the City Council speaker, Gifford Miller, was decidedly not onto something at a televised Town Hall meeting last week when he blasted the incumbent for being “totally out of ideas.”


“He doesn’t have a point,” Mr. Cunningham said of Mr. Miller. “What he has is a campaign that’s flailing around.”


But the Bloomberg strategist said it wasn’t his job to preview Mr. Bloomberg’s second-term blockbuster programs. Rather, he said, between now and November, Mr. Bloomberg would be having a “series of discussions” with New Yorkers, during which “the public will get a clear sense of what the mayor’s plan is.”


In the meantime, Mr. Cunningham said, New Yorkers can glean clues about Mr. Bloomberg’s vision for the next four years by looking at his first term accomplishments.


“It’s important to know that the basis for moving forward in this city has started,” Mr. Cunningham said, “To some degree, what you see around the city is the creation of that future city.”


In 2001, Mr. Bloomberg said education was his top priority. He said last week that education would remain his top priority.


So far, the Bloomberg administration has focused on elementary school reform, implementing new policies to end “social promotion,” creating interventions for struggling students such as Saturday school and summer school, and instituting a new curriculum. Mr. Cunningham said high schools would be the next frontier. He also said new technology in the schools would make it possible for principals to become more effective school leaders and allow regional leaders to monitor the schools better.


Economic development, too, has been a key goal of the Bloomberg administration and would remain a top priority in a second term.


“New York City’s history for 300 years is a history of building and changing,” Mr. Cunningham said. “But to do that, you can’t just build up. You can’t just build out. So you have to adapt. What you’ve seen in the last four years – in addition to all the problems with the budget, and coming out of 9/11, and dealing with terrorism, and fighting to keep crime coming down – is an administration that has started to change the physical shape and look of the city. Mike Bloomberg’s vision for the city is taking shape, and it will be built out over the next 20 or 30 years in these developments.”


That means continued focus on the waterfronts and a sustained effort to rezone New York to encourage commercial and residential growth in some areas while “down-zoning” other areas, such as Staten Island, to prevent overcrowding.


Campaign outsiders agree that Mr. Bloomberg’s first term should be used to predict what’s to come.


“I think they’ll be like the last four,” a veteran political consultant, Norman Adler, said. He said the mayor would be “nuts” not to “use the game book he’s been using up to now,” especially given his success so far in wooing voters who ordinarily shun Republican candidates.


The president of the Partnership for New York City, Kathryn Wylde, also said Mr. Bloomberg should build on his first-term projects. In particular, she said, education should remain the top priority, because it prepares young New Yorkers to join the work force.


She said Mr. Bloomberg should also follow through on economic-development projects. For example, she said, land has been zoned for new commercial uses, but the city must market itself so that businesses move in and create jobs here.


Mayor Koch, too, said Mr. Bloomberg should build on his record, rather than initiating a series of new programs.


“I believe that the issues he has had huge success with are the issues that he should continue with,” Mr. Koch, who was mayor between 1977 and 1989, said in a telephone interview. “They haven’t been completed – education, the economy, race relations, housing. Those are the major issues in this town, and while he’s had big successes, they are not yet done.”


According to a Marist Poll released yesterday, fully 42% of New York City Democrats who were interviewed said they planned to vote for Mr. Bloomberg for re-election in November.


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use