As I suggested a few weeks ago, the Working Families Party has nominated a placeholder candidate for mayor, an attorney who, I suspect, is eligible to conveniently run for a judicial post come September. This is one of the few ways a candidate can be substituted after the Democrats and Republicans choose their mayoral nominees in the primary.

While the tactic is being interpreted as a “defeat” for Fernando Ferrer, I think that the nomination is worthless to a Democrat. Those who are uncomfortable voting Democratic in the November election, presumably independents and Republicans or moderates of any stripe, will hardly feel more at home in the far-left preserves of the Working Families Party, where radicals run free.

On the other hand, the party’s nomination would be of enormous value to Mayor Bloomberg, providing a place that a more liberal type might feel is more hospitable than the party of President Bush. This is the strategy that kept the Liberal Party (and its predecessor, the American Labor Party) going for years, aiding Republicans like Fiorello LaGuardia, John Lindsay, and Rudolph Giuliani overcome the stigma of being a Republican in a very Democratic town.

In any case, the liberal line gave no traction to the Democratic mayoral primary bid of Alan Hevesi four years ago, nor did the Working Families Party make a difference for Mark Green in the general election.

***

Yesterday, my colleague Jill Gardiner disclosed that Council Speaker Gifford Miller is using public funds to send out what any rational observer would identify as a piece of campaign literature. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Mr. Miller is also using joint mailings with his friendly colleagues to push specific issues to specific communities.

In the northwest Bronx, Mr. Miller is teaming up with the local council member, his supporter, G. Oliver Koppell, in a mailed attack to senior citizens on the mayor’s revisions to the Meals on Wheels program.

This is an issue on which Mr. Miller can draw blood. Inexplicably, the mayor violated two golden rules of politics: Never mess with senior citizens, and don’t reward your enemies.

This pilot program shifted the city’s Meals on Wheels contracts in the Bronx from a wide variety of local community-based groups to just one – a well-connected nonprofit with strong ties to Fernando Ferrer and his political guru, Roberto Ramirez. More importantly, the delivery of hot meals five days a week was reduced to one delivery of five frozen meals.

Mr. Koppell, who faces a challenge in the primary, and Mr. Miller have their pictures on this self-mailer, which urges seniors to mail back a postcard (using the Council’s business-reply postal permit) that will be delivered to the mayor, urging Mr. Bloomberg to “bring back” their hot meals.

While this is not as slick and obvious as the glossy education piece reported on previously, it is targeted and effective nonetheless. The device of the response card on both pieces is very clever, and has the potential to generate lists of voters who are motivated by particular public-policy issues.

These mailings are not new. Every office-holder uses the public treasury to promote his or her incumbency. But this has evolved into an art form that undermines confidence in government overall by stacking the deck on behalf of incumbents. To be fair to Mr. Miller, his predecessor, Peter Vallone, who also ran for mayor, used public funds for mailings in a similar, though not quite as professional, way.

In tightening regulation of this practice, reform-minded individuals and groups should look at two areas for possible investigation. Did the mailings only go to those registered in the Democratic Party? This would indicate a partisan agenda aimed at winning the primary. In addition, the use of the names generated through the response cards should not cross the line of politics. These names should not be viewed as a “favorable voter” list and used to generate “pull lists” for primary or Election Day.

***

The real loser in the recently released New York One/Newsday poll is the Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields. Ms. Fields, handed a golden opportunity by the Ferrer-Diallo flap, failed to exploit her momentum and expand her base. Mr. Ferrer can at least point to what might be an end to the bleeding he experienced these past two months. Mr. Miller and Anthony Weiner are also stuck in the mud.

The big winner, of course, is Mayor Bloomberg. The Democratic race seems to be deteriorating into a contest to see who plays the role of Ruth Messinger to Mr. Bloomberg’s Rudy Giuliani, a reprise of the 1997 blowout. The question now is how the stadium disaster will impact the next poll, but most observers agree that, in the long run, if the stadium is off the table, it frees Mr. Bloomberg from being dogged into November by an unpopular issue.