Enthusiastically Euthanasic

More democracy, not less:

Setting up a showdown over one of the most divisive issues in recent political memory, Speaker Christine C. Quinn announced Tuesday that the City Council would vote Thursday on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to revise the term limits law so he can pursue four more years in office.

Supporters of the change said the move reflected Mr. Bloomberg’s and Ms. Quinn’s confidence that they have gathered the 26 Council votes needed to pass the legislation.

There are also signs that public opinion is tilting against the change, and privately some allies of Ms. Quinn say she is anxious, if not desperate, to hold the vote before an advertising campaign opposing the change takes hold.

“If it’s not on Thursday, they’re in trouble,” said one council member who supports the bill, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to upset the mayor or the speaker.

In A Bloomberg State Of Mind

Brenda and Eddie were still going steady in the summer of ’75 when they decided the marriage would be at the end of July everyone said they were crazy “Brenda, you know that you’re much too lazy And Eddie could never afford to live that kind of life” But there we were wavin’ Brenda and Eddie goodbye:

Michael R. Bloomberg, who says he strictly separates his philanthropy from his job as mayor of New York, is pressing many of the community, arts and neighborhood groups that rely on his private donations to make the case for his third term, according to interviews with those involved in the effort.

As opposition mounts to his plan to ease term limits, those people said, the mayor and his top aides have asked leaders of organizations that receive his largess to express their support for his third-term bid by testifying during public hearings and by personally appealing to undecided members of the City Council. Legislation that would allow him to run for another term is expected to come up for a Council vote as early as next week.

The requests have put the groups in an unusual and uncomfortable position, several employees of the groups said. City Hall has not made any explicit threats, they said, but city officials have extraordinary leverage over the groups’ finances. Many have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr. Bloomberg’s philanthropic giving and millions of dollars from city contracts overseen by his staff.

An official at a social service group that receives tens of thousands of dollars from Mr. Bloomberg and has a contract with the city was startled to receive a call in the past few days from Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. Ms. Gibbs asked whether the organization’s leaders would be willing to call wavering council members to argue for Mr. Bloomberg’s term limits legislation.

“It’s pretty hard to say no,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the mayor. “They can take away a lot of resources.”

Now Paul is a real estate novelist who never had time for a wife and he’s talking with Davy who’s still in the Navy and probably will be for life and the waitress is practicing politics as the businessmen slowly get stoned yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness but its better than drinking alone:

Several of New York City’s top political figures on Sunday denounced Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s administration in unusually harsh terms for asking nonprofit groups to support legislation that would allow Mr. Bloomberg to seek a third term in office.

Many of the organizations contacted by the administration rely on Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire, for tens of thousands of dollars a year in private donations and millions in city contracts, making it difficult to turn down the request, these leaders said.

“It is an abuse of power, and it must stop,” said the city’s top financial watchdog, the New York City comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., who may run for mayor next year.

Representative Anthony D. Weiner, another likely candidate for mayor, said that “if you rely on the mayor or the administration to fund your organization, saying no when the mayor calls is not an option.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s tactic, he said, “walks right up to the line of coercion, and it’s very corrosive.”

I’m gonna try for an uptown girl she’s been living in her white bread world as long as anyone with hot blood can and now shes looking for a downtown man that’s what I am:

On Sunday afternoon, 13 nattily-dressed union leaders representing thousands of New York City’s public and private workers shuffled out of City Hall and assembled before a bank of television cameras. The men — and they were all men — wanted to talk about term limits and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, was the first to speak. “What I am going to do is have each one come up to the microphone and turn around and give their name and have a short speech about why they are support extending term limits,” he said.

If the event lacked a spontaneous feel, it was because it was not at all spontaneous. The deputy mayor for operations, Edward Skyler, who helps negotiate labor contracts for the city, and Patrick Brennan, a political consult who has worked on Mr. Bloomberg’s mayoral campaigns, had called the union heads and asked them to show up. So they did, but without any of their rank-and-file workers, who are normally the backdrop for such events.

Fifteen minutes before the press conference, the men met had met with Mr. Skyler to talk about their speeches. The result was an hour-long recitation of the same four talking points — extending term limits from eight to 12 years, as Mr. Bloomberg wants, creates more choice for voters; the economy is in trouble; elections are the best form of term limits; Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is an accomplished leader; and, finally, that these speeches are not a political endorsement (though some certainly came close.)

. . .

At the end of the press conference, a reporter asked whether the support for changing term limits was at all motivated by self-interest, since many of the public unions have received healthy pay raises under the Bloomberg administration.

John J. McDonnell, President, Uniformed Fire Officers Association, replied that his union “has enjoyed good contracts” under Mr. Bloomberg, “but we have earned them.”

It’s Not So Much Self-Serving As It Is Crassly Opportunistic

Of the 15 Councilmembers who have expressed support for the plan to raise term limits for the City Council and Mayor to three terms, at least temporarily, before a Charter Revision Commission can restore them to two, 14 are term limited out of office in 2009.

Remember, More Democracy, Not Less

And spending $80 million is a celebration of free speech, not bullying your way into office with unlimited piles of cash:

Even as Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his advisers await a City Council vote on a measure that would allow him to seek a third term, they are mapping out an aggressive re-election strategy that involves spending $80 million or more, according to people involved in the discussions.

In Tough Times It Is Probably Good To Have More Choices . . .

Case in point:

One of the casualties of Michael Bloomberg’s move to run for a third term, it seems, is next year’s Democratic primary.

Yes, it’s still 11 months away, and the mayor has only just finished announcing his intention to overturn term limits, but the prospect of Mr. Bloomberg — and his billions of dollars — running again may have ended the contest before it even took shape.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Bloomberg ally who was the favorite of much of the city’s business establishment, reacted immediately by announcing that she would abandon a planned run if the mayor went for reelection.

City Comptroller Bill Thompson, the only minority candidate in the prospective Democratic field, says that he’s running, but doesn’t sound incredibly convincing. For now, his game plan consists entirely of trying to block the mayor from running by casting public doubt on the idea of changing term limits without a referendum.

. . .

“No one believes Thompson stays in,” said George Arzt, a Democratic consultant. (Mr. Arzt, a former City Hall bureau chief for the New York Post and aide to Mayor Ed Koch, said that he had “spoken with” more than one potential mayoral campaign, but that he won’t work for any of them against Mr. Bloomberg if the mayor runs.)

. . .

“People do believe that, at least initially, Weiner will be in there, but if he sees he’s going to get crushed that he would back out, rather than suffer two different losses in two different elections,” said Mr. Arzt, referring to Mr. Weiner’s run for mayor in 2005 in which he narrowly missed making a runoff against the eventual Democratic nominee, Fernando Ferrer.

Consultant Jerry Skurnik was more hopeful about the chances of having some sort of primary contest, but only slightly: “The odds are two of the three will run, and that we’ll have a primary,” said Mr. Skurnik, referring to Mr. Thompson, Mr. Weiner and Mr. Avella. “But it’s possible that we won’t have a primary — that only one of them will run. I don’t know.”

Of course, there’s one more scenario — perhaps the least appealing of all for the Democrats: that Bloomberg, instead of destroying their primary, joins it.

Mr. Arzt said that an employee in his consulting firm already received a call as part of a telephone survey asking whether the employee would support Mr. Bloomberg if he ran as a Democrat in next year’s primary.