Signs of an altered landscape quickly emerged as Mr. Bloomberg, never known for his humility, made an elaborate show of deference. His staff hastily arranged a highly visible meeting, at a Manhattan restaurant, with the city’s public advocate-elect, Bill de Blasio, a Democrat. Just a few weeks ago, the mayor said the citywide office was “a waste of everyone’s money,” and called for its abolition.

But tellingly, when the mayor tried to meet with John C. Liu, the Democratic comptroller-elect, Mr. Liu said he could not find time on his schedule, a highly unusual slight.

Later, Mr. Liu told a reporter: “A long time ago, the people of New York decided there would be no king nor a monarch in New York City.”

It wasn’t just the media who were fundamentally incurious about the polls but also the Democratic Party itself:

As the cheering dies down over at William C. Thompson Jr.’s headquarters, where close almost passed for victory on Tuesday evening, New York’s Democrats are left to consider a colder reality:

This was a race most Democrats now believe they could have won. Numbering among the co-conspirators in the Democrats’ defeat, in the view of some party leaders and activists, are Democratic grandees, from President Obama — who did not campaign for Mr. Thompson — to the City Council speaker, whose support could not have been softer, to two powerful labor unions that remained studiously neutral.

. . .

Barbara Fife, a deputy mayor under David N. Dinkins, acknowledged many ills, from an honorable but lackluster candidate to a too-quick willingness of many prominent Democrats to write off Mr. Thompson’s campaign as stillborn.

But she wondered at a Democratic president who could barely bring himself to utter the mayoral candidate’s name, much less to make a swing through New York. “He made people feel this was not winnable; Bill got lumped in with Paterson in many minds,” Ms. Fife said. “Obama had lists he could have given, and support. But he never said boo.”

And back in that first article there’s an important lesson to take away — specifically, feel free not to fall for campaign bullshit, because they’re probably just making it all up:

Behind the scenes, the close margin had set off second-guessing and soul-searching among some of the aides, who privately questioned the heavily negative advertising efforts.

As the city’s political establishment tried to understand the huge gulf between the cocksure rhetoric of the mayor’s campaign and his showing at the polls, Bloomberg aides said that they had relentlessly promoted the mayor as invulnerable in the race when they knew differently, saying it was the only way they for them to keep the Democratic establishment from rallying behind Mr. Thompson.

Said one top Bloomberg campaign adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect internal discussions: “If a poll had come out showing that the race was within five points, Barack Obama would have swung into town, the United Federation of Teachers would break for Thompson and Mike Bloomberg would not be mayor today.”

On Election Day, this adviser said, “everybody woke up and saw what we saw. We are lucky to have seen it first.”

And here’s where it leaves you:

Mark Radichio, 42, who owns a landscaping company, said that he has been a lifelong Democrat, but that he voted for Mr. Bloomberg in 2001 and 2005.

“I liked his style, his independence, and I’ve always liked the fact that he doesn’t take campaign money from anyone,” Mr. Radichio said.

Then two things happened that made him change his mind about the mayor. “First, it was term limits. The guy just wants to be mayor for life, and I don’t like that,” said Mr. Radichio, who lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. “Then, it was all this money he spent on his campaign. People are unemployed, they’re losing their homes, and you’re spending tens of millions of dollars on a political campaign? There’s something wrong with this picture.”

Mr. Radichio thought it over and decided he would vote for Mr. Thompson, whom he confessed knowing little about, but who he thought would be a better choice, given Mr. Bloomberg’s “baggage,” as he put it.

“I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t vote,” Mr. Radichio said. “I just assumed Bloomberg was going to crush the other guy. I’ll tell you, I’m never going to sit out an election again.”

Speaking of people not showing up when it counts, an e-mailer passes along this conversation that took place this morning in a Midtown office building:

Girl in Yankees shirt in coffee room at [Midtown office]: Yeah!

Guy in business casual: Awesome, I know!

Girl: Did you watch the game?

Guy: Nah, I knew they were going to win. I went out with my boys instead, and they’re Mets fans, so . . .

Girl: Yeah, I only watched the one game. So awesome!

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

According to a 2005 NYC Housing and Vacancy survey, 40 percent of Big Apple citizens live in one-bedrooms or studios. While there’s no breakdown of how many of those dwellings house kids, anecdotal evidence indicates that a lot of families are making do — and making whoopee — in uncomfortably close quarters.

The owners of Stella D’oro, the longtime Bronx Italian cookie and breadstick baker, said Wednesday they have sold the company — and its operations will be moving to Ohio by the end of the month.

Some 150 union and other plant workers will be out on the street.

Newcomers to the city’s food-cart wars say that when they stake a claim to a busy corner, they frequently get threatened by a loose-knit band of gyro-cooking thugs they call the “Halal Mafia.”

Item:

A city firefighter was fighting for his life last night after being repeatedly hit in the head by two men and a woman early yesterday in the Staten Island Ferry’s Whitehall Terminal, authorities said.

. . .

“They said, ‘Shut the f- – - up before we beat you up!’ ”

The three then jumped Dugan, pummeling him about the face and head before running away.

Item:

Three peed-off perps brutally beat a man for taking too long in the bathroom at a Greenwich Village bagel shop, police said yesterday.

Item:

As The Post reported yesterday, the luxury suites at Citi Field are leaky and moldy, tiles have been falling apart, electrical systems are shorting out throughout the building, and concrete panels have fallen off the walls, according to sources who’ve seen the damage.

Item:

Grant told cops that he was walking home from Amersfort Park at East 39th Street and Avenue J in East Flatbush around 1:30 a.m., when the gun began to fall into his pants, sources said.

When Grant grabbed for it, he accidentally pulled the trigger, firing a bullet right through his penis.

Location Scout: Whitehall Ferry Terminal, Citi Field.

Mayor Bloomberg Friday interrupted a radio health care discussion to blurt out that drug companies — and their execs — don’t make big bucks.

“Last time I checked, pharmaceutical companies don’t make a lot of money,” he said on his WOR-AM radio show. “Their executives don’t make a lot of money.”

Someone must have quickly rechecked, because he backpedaled after a commercial break.

“I looked up the top pay of some of these executives in big pharma,” Bloomberg said.

“Some of them are making a lot of money. Some of them are making a decent amount of — more than a decent amount of money.”

Corollary: Voters probably don’t care about what you think about R&D costs . . .

An Aug. 13 letter from the City Conflicts of Interest Board warned Williams, a lifeguard since 1984, that he’d violated board rules by using a Parks Department phone to call clients and meeting a client at work.

Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to end “social promotion,” sixth-graders can score high enough on state English exams to move to the next grade – just by guessing.

The number of correct answers needed to score a Level 2 to get promoted has sunk so low that a student can guess on the multiple choice section and leave the rest of the test blank.

In seventh grade, students who guess need just one extra right answer to make the cut.

Transit workers appear poised to win a generous contract with healthy 4% annual raises and lower health care contributions that could blow a huge hole in the MTA’s finances, sources tell the Daily News.

Despite recent fare hikes and the punishing recession, transit union officials argued that they deserve a 12% hike over three years, partly because city employees have received similar increases.

A three-man arbitration panel is expected to announce the terms of the new contract for bus and subway workers as early as Monday or Tuesday. The expected annual raises of about 4%, 4% and 3.5% would increase Metropolitan Transportation Authority costs by more than $400 million.

Again, think about all this when you see the next fifty or sixty Bloomberg commercials about how he is “independent” and makes the “tough choices” or whatever, because basically any one of the candidates currently running for mayor can suck up to the unions — we didn’t need to get rid of term limits for that.