It’s the Strategy

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

There are two ways to run a campaign: one is to win over the reasonable edge of the opposition, putting your opponent on the defensive by invading their territory; the second is to play to your base and pray for high turnout.


The Bloomberg campaign has obsessively followed the first model to its current 30-point lead in the polls, while Fernando Ferrer’s lack of traction is due largely to his adherence to the second, old-Democrat script.


While money and missteps have played their role in the lopsided totals to date, one of the most decisive and under-recognized factors in this sleepwalk of a mayoral race has been the candidates’ very different strategies.


In this final lap of the fall, it is easy to forget that seven months ago, Mr. Ferrer was beating Mr. Bloomberg in most polls, and the mayor had not broken 50% approval rating on any sustained basis during his three years in City Hall.


Since the spending began in late spring, Mr. Bloomberg has vaulted ahead and finally developed a coherent public identity based on near constant advertising of his record. He is the Democrat in Republican’s clothing; an independent chief executive, serious about crime and compassionate about kids.


Nowhere have his targeted ads run more often than in black and Latino neighborhoods. These are ornate affairs, one showing salsa king Willie Colon literally singing Mr. Bloomberg’s praises in Spanish with trombone in hand against a blue sky. By campaigning hard – if largely in audio and digital format – in traditionally Democratic communities, Mr. Bloomberg has been rewarded with an unprecedented degree of support among black and Latino voters, more than 45% against the first Latino general election candidate for mayor.


High profile endorsements have followed, with Mr. Bloomberg capturing the official support of local Democratic luminaries including the Rev. Calvin Butts; the Rev. Floyd Flake; Mayor Koch; the former City Council speaker, Peter Vallone; the president of Brooklyn, Marty Markowitz; and City Council Member Eva Moskowitz.


In contrast, Mr. Ferrer’s camp can boast virtually no major Republican support. While Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign Web site features a prominent appeal to Democrats, nowhere easily visible on Mr. Ferrer’s site is outreach to the several million registered non-Democrats in New York City. Mr. Bloomberg has been endorsed by the Republican, Independence and Liberal Party, giving supporters a number of labels under which to rationalize their support. Mr. Ferrer could not even secure the ballot line of the Working Families Party.


The endorsements that Mr. Ferrer has received are from predictable party warriors with limited cross-over appeal: Senator Clinton; Howard Dean, David Dinkins; Sheldon Silver. But per haps the most vivid example of the Ferrer campaign’s limited strategic vision came in the way they chose to deploy their most powerful endorsement to date. Given the gift of President Clinton campaigning with their candidate, the Ferrer camp placed the two side by side in…the South Bronx.


This is the very place that Mr. Ferrer, the former president of the Bronx, should be least concerned about increasing his support; but the old Democratic playbook says use your star power to excite the base. A far smarter New Democrat deployment would have brought President Clinton and Mr. Ferrer into a walking tour of Rockefeller Center and Times Square. The photo-ops and the enthusiastic crowds may have nudged some sleepwalking Bloomberg Democratic supporters into reconsidering their vote. But the opportunity was wasted – and doubly so: the latest Quinnipiac Poll shows Mr. Bloomberg beating Mr. Ferrer 45 to 43 percent in the Bronx.


This basic strategic mistake has been made consistently in terms of substance as well as style. No doubt out of genuine principle, the majority of Mr. Ferrer’s campaign proposals echo old school Democrats of the past – affordable housing, improving access to health care, and increasing taxes on Wall Street. This is an extension of the “Two New Yorks” class-based critique Mr. Ferrer used in his 2001 campaign. This may stimulate the base but it is unlikely to win over many new converts.


On Wednesday, the Ferrer camp seemed to recognize the need to change tactics, when it unveiled a plan to cut taxes on the homeowners who received the unexpected tax-increase of Mr. Bloomberg’s first term. The headline of the press release sounded positively Republican: “Ferrer Provides New Yorkers Historic Relief from Bloomberg’s Crushing Tax Burdens.” But this strategic realignment is likely to be too little, too late. A more successful sustained strategy would have put Mr. Ferrer among middle class homeowners in Queens and Staten Island early in the campaign. It would have deployed surrogates like Gifford Miller and Anthony Weiner to stand vigil outside firehouses that have been closed in Brooklyn and Staten Island. It would have hit hard at the lack of visible progress at Ground Zero, tied the mayor to the floundering governor, and made lower Manhattan the litmus test of the mayor’s leadership. But instead, the contender has ceded that ground, leaving the mayor to shine at high-profile events like the annual Al Smith Dinner, which Mr. Ferrer declined to attend in favor of clubhouse fund-raisers, prompting Al Smith IV to proclaim, “Looks like that race is over.”


The mayor’s race, of course, is not over. But the mayor’s centrist strategic flexibility has allowed him to easily answer Mr. Ferrer’s substantive attacks, as when he recently announced a new initiative on affordable housing. The race will inevitably tighten in the closing days, but Mr. Bloomberg’s lead – buoyed by a possible clean sweep of local newspaper endorsements – looks increasingly insurmountable. It is the latest object lesson in what should now be obvious: successful candidates aggressively reach out beyond their base and keep the opposition off-balance.


jpavlon@nysun.com


The New York Sun

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