Gift, As In “White Elephant”

If you only read the teaser blurb at the bottom of the front page* — “In ‘NYC’ Clyde Haberman looks at Michael R. Bloomberg’s campaign to extend term limits and how it could be considered the mayor’s gift to the people of New York — the gift of himself” — you would miss the point of Clyde Haberman’s column:

These are obviously tough times. The stock market is cratering. Local tax revenues are sure to plunge more sharply than a major league sinkerball. In this toxic atmosphere, the multibillionaire businessman turned $1-a-year politician has in essence announced loftily to his fellow citizens: “I make a gift of myself to New York to lessen its misfortune.”

It is a present that many in the city would happily accept. The mayor remains remarkably popular after nearly seven years in office. At this stage of the game, government leaders tend to be about as well liked as oil company executives (see: Bush, George W.). Mr. Bloomberg defies the normal pattern. Recent polls suggest that most New Yorkers would be glad to have him stay at the helm through a financial crisis that is likely to be with us for a while.

But there’s this pesky thing standing in the way. It is called the expressed will of the people.

Twice in the 1990s, New York voters approved referendums limiting the mayor and other officeholders to two terms. There is no reason that Mr. Bloomberg could not have gone back to the voters to ask if they’d had a change of heart and would bend the system to give him a third term.

Instead, with the support of fellow billionaires and an amen chorus of newspaper editorials, he worked behind the scenes to have the City Council change the rules all on its own. It would also mean that three dozen council members scheduled to leave office at the end of next year would get a chance to stick around for an extra term. Ditto for the public advocate, the city comptroller and the five borough presidents. It is quite inclusive, the Incumbency Protection Act of 2008.

*And now that Haberman’s column is buried on A27, it certainly makes it easy for an editor to de-sarcasticate a column with a slim blurb.

The Power Broker

The Times’ David Carr goes local and explains how the city’s major editorial boards slid into the tank for the mayor:

Mr. Bloomberg said that he understood the situation and did not take the people’s verdict lightly. “But as newspaper editorialists and others have pointed out,” he said, “the current law denies voters the right to choose who to vote for — at a time when our economy is in turmoil and the Council is a democratically elected representative body.”

It is no coincidence that Mr. Bloomberg cited voices from the city’s opinion leaders. With a fiscal crisis at hand, the business leaders of New York has already held a private referendum and decided who the next mayor should be. So in spite of his rather breathtaking grab for another term, there will be no opprobrium forthcoming from the editorial pages of the city’s newspapers.

Before Mr. Bloomberg took this controversial step — remember when Rudolph W. Giuliani got clobbered for seeking three more months in office after Sept. 11? — he made the rounds and locked up the support of the editorial pages of The New York Post, The New York Times and The Daily News, three city newspapers not known for moving in lock step.

. . .

To set the stage, the mayor had spent the last month making plain his interest in staying put at City Hall. He did not post a Web site or drop items in various blogs, but instead called Howard J. Rubenstein, a master of the city’s power grid. Meetings were set up with the owners of the daily newspapers, as well as with potential opponents and the city’s corporate overlords.

It was a gambit that would not have been out of place in the 1970s — or the 1870s, for that matter. This being a Bloomberg administration, there were no smoke-filled rooms, but there was definitely the sense that issues of civic moment were being handled in private environs.

“The only thing that my clients have been talking about for the past few weeks is the fiscal dilemma that this city is facing,” said Mr. Rubenstein, the public relations mogul who helped broker a deal in 1975 involving Abraham D. Beame, then mayor of the city, and Governor Hugh L. Carey back when the feds told the city to more or less drop dead.

“I did step up because I want to see the city survive and prosper,” Mr. Rubenstein said, “and I think we all agree that he is the person who we would like to see leading us through this crisis.”

In mid-September, after a year of talking on and off, Mr. Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch, who owns The New York Post, met for dinner at an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side and sealed a deal. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times, had two breakfasts with the mayor, and although no specific commitments were made, an understanding was reached.

Mortimer B. Zuckerman, owner of The Daily News, said he had no trouble throwing his support behind Mr. Bloomberg. He said there had been no cabal, no conspiracy, just three newspaper publishers all arriving at the same conclusion at a critical juncture in the life of the city.

“Suggesting that the publishers can decide who the next mayor is is a little like being a 90-year-old named in a paternity suit,” Mr. Zuckerman said on the phone. “I only wish we had that kind of power. I think he has been a remarkable mayor, we face tremendous challenges as a city right now, and it’s clear that he is the person for the job.”

“I Don’t Want To Walk Away From A City I Feel I Can Help Lead Through These Tough Times”

Emphasis on, “I don’t want to walk away”:

The term-limits question could have gone before the voters a third time next month had Bloomberg appointed a Charter Revision Commission he promised in January in his State of the City speech.

Councilman Bill DeBlasio (D-Brooklyn) called on the mayor to name that commission now so it could do just that in a special election.

But the mayor rejected that idea as “problematic.”

Chavez The Man Can Get!

No need for referendum, by the way:

Council Speaker Christine Quinn disclosed Thursday that the mayor’s bill will request a permanent extension of term limits instead of a one-time waiver.

The question of whether to extend term limits permanently to three four-year terms from two — rather than just once for Bloomberg and other incumbents — is one of the most contentious aspects of the controversial move.

“As I understand the mayor’s bill, it is a bill that would permanently change term limits from eight years to 12 years,” said Quinn in a seeming slip.

The Saturday Crossword Is A “Challenge” . . .

. . . rewriting the law like you’re the Hugo Chavez of the Northeast is something different. And that press conference still doesn’t really provide a reason why this is a good idea:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced on Thursday that he would abandon his earlier opposition to changing the term limits law and seek a third term as mayor, arguing that the economic crisis buffeting the nation called for continuity in municipal leadership.

“The good news is that we have planned for a slowdown in New York, but we may well be on the verge of a meltdown,” Mr. Bloomberg said, “and it’s up to us to rise to the occasion.”

He added that a third term “is a challenge I want to take on for the people of New York.”

At a noontime news conference at City Hall, the mayor did not detail how the law, which voters have twice approved through referendums, would be overhauled.

“Should the City Council vote to amend term limits, I plan to ask New Yorkers to look at my record of independent leadership and then decide if I’ve earned another term,” he said. “As always, it will be up to the people to decide, not me.”

The mayor maintained he was still a supporter of term limits. “You’re not taking away term limits,” he said. “You’re simply going from two terms to three terms.”

So if next November the economy is in better shape, we can expect that you won’t run? Is that a promise?