“Friends And Allies Literally Roll Their Eyes When They Hear The New York City Mayor Is Trying To Go National Again”

“What’s Bill de Blasio’s Problem?”:

De Blasio chalks up the fizzling of his progressive agenda to being overtaken by the Bernie Sanders campaign, which launched at a much smaller event on the other side of the Capitol two weeks earlier in the spring 2015, but became a phenomenon while focusing on many of the same issues, only with much wider support.

De Blasio bristles when presented with this failure, arguing that it’s “banal and simplistic” to expect him to fail at taking his message national now. “I want to talk to anyone who thinks that and tell them they need to start thinking more. I mean, give me a break. So every time someone tries something and it doesn’t work, it invalidates anything else they might do going forward? Tell Thomas Edison that, and Henry Ford, tell Mahatma Gandhi. How many people fell on their faces along the way trying things, experimenting with things, had setbacks? There’s no leader who hasn’t had setbacks.”

[. . .]

As long as they’re talking off the record, many Democratic leaders and operatives will trash de Blasio. They think he’s smug. Annoying. In it for himself without any follow-through. The rap on de Blasio is that he likes to make a lot of noise but doesn’t like to do a lot of work, that he has an oversize sense of his own importance.

It’s often visceral. One mayor, pondering why so many national Democrats don’t like de Blasio, took a long pause and could only summon, “I don’t know.”

You Don’t Achieve All Those Things Without Managing The Hell Out Of The Situation

“Poor Bill de Blasio — so good at being mayor and so misunderstood.”:

His remarks echoed an essay the mayor posted online on Friday, sounding a tone that, as he appears to be cruising toward a likely re-election without strong opponents, is remarkably both self-aggrandizing and self-pitying.

[. . .]

He also said that he wished he had never promised to provide examples, but did so using an unfortunate turn of phrase for a mayor who, especially early on during his administration, was accused of sleeping in and therefore running late to events.

“I said it in a moment of frustration,” he said. “You know the old phrase, ‘I shoulda stood in bed’? I should have just let it be, but I’m fine with it. I would have been better off saying nothing.”

“Less Than Six Months After Bill De Blasio Became Mayor Of New York City, A Campaign Donor Buttonholed Him At An Event In Manhattan”

And here’s what $33,000 will get you:

Still, Mr. de Blasio’s efforts on behalf of Mr. Singh illustrated in stark terms the transactional form of governing that had largely been absent under Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire who eschewed campaign donations during his 12 years as mayor.

Being a donor afforded Mr. Singh access to a mayor eager to put the city bureaucracy at his service. Emails, city documents and interviews with the participants show how Mr. Singh was attended to by members of Mr. de Blasio’s inner circle and other top officials. Over 15 months, meetings were arranged, and City Hall officials were given progress reports. And when the talks were not proceeding to Mr. Singh’s liking, the city’s team of negotiators was suddenly replaced.

Nothing Hamburger

The point?:

Mr. de Blasio’s travels to Hamburg, where he spoke at a nonviolent political demonstration against the G-20 meeting of world leaders and visited his son, who is living abroad this summer, would probably have raised curiosity under most circumstances.

But the timing of his trip — he left the day after the ambush killing of a city police officer as she sat in her mobile command unit in the Bronx — drew criticism from even some staunch supporters. It threatened to reopen wounds between Mr. de Blasio and the Police Department that the mayor had worked assiduously to salve since the last time officers were gunned down in an apparently targeted killing, in December 2014.

And it also demonstrated, in stark terms, a political reality that the mayor knows well: His fortunes have been improving as he heads toward re-election, and with few challengers, he now appears to have broad latitude to behave in whatever way he sees fit.

That has created something of a de Blasio Unbound, free to disregard criticism from various parts of the spectrum, including police unions, commentators, Democratic and Republican rivals — and, of course, the lacerating series of tabloid headlines: “And Don’t Come Back,” The New York Post shouted Friday; “Mayor Phones It In,” The New York Daily News remarked Saturday; and, finally, The Post’s welcome-back front page to the mayor, “Deutsch Bag.”

“That’s what’s frustrating for me about him not having an opponent,” said Christina M. Greer, a professor of political science at Fordham University. “There’s a certain level of accountability that is not there.”

Mr. de Blasio, back in New York on Monday, defended the trip, saying it was important to let people in other parts of the world know that many Americans disagree with President Trump, who attend the G-20 meeting in Hamburg.

“This was a particularly meaningful moment,” Mr. de Blasio said, “and bluntly, what a lot of people wanted to know was that the cities of America, that the states of America were not going to follow along with President Trump on issues like climate change.”

Many New York elected officials groused about the apparent fruitlessness of the travel — it was not tied to a job-seeking economic mission or other possible city business — and the perception that Mr. de Blasio was being disrespectful to a police force in mourning over the loss of an officer. But none would do so on the record, to avoid picking a fight with the newly emboldened mayor.

. . . to achieve a “city purpose”:

The city Conflicts of Interest Board gave Mayor de Blasio the green light for a free trip to Germany because it achieved a “city purpose” — of opposing President Trump, a spokesman said Monday. An email from the conflicts board’s lawyer, sent at 10 p.m. Friday — more than a day after de Blasio flew to Germany — said the board approved his itinerary based on a rule that allows acceptance of travel-related gifts if “the trip is for a city purpose and therefore could properly be paid for with city funds.”

Asked what city purpose was achieved by de Blasio giving the keynote speech at a G20 protest rally in Hamburg, spokesman Eric Phillips cited Hizzoner’s self-appointed role as a progressive foil to the president.

“He was representing New York City and our values, and providing an alternate American viewpoint to the deeply problematic vision of President Trump,” Phillips said.

On Cheap Symbolism

June 2017: “During a regularly scheduled radio appearance on WNYC recently, Mayor de Blasio implied that he would not be baited into the ‘cheap symbolism’ of taking mass transit to the gym, and that caravan-style mobility was, in effect, his right” (“Mayor de Blasio’s Symbolism, Plastic-Wrapped in Arrogance”).

July 2017: “Homeless booted from subways so de Blasio could have ‘clean’ ride”:

Mayor Bill de Blasio ventured into the city’s decrepit subway system Sunday — but didn’t have to face the foul-smelling and often crazy vagrants whom ordinary New Yorkers are forced to contend with every day.That’s because police were ordered to roust all the homeless people from two stations ahead of the mayor’s four-stop press event as he rode from his Park Slope gym to his new re-election headquarters in downtown Brooklyn, law enforcement sources told The Post.

The rank and file had until 11 a.m. to prepare the Fourth Avenue/Ninth Street and Jay Street/MetroTech F train stations for the mayor’s brief, underground publicity stunt, sources said.

One source characterized the directive — contained in an email from the NYPD’s Transit Bureau — as instructing cops to “make sure nobody’s hanging out” so that the stations “looked nice.”

Another source said the mayor’s office notified police brass of his schedule ahead of time “with the expectation that the subway stations would be free and clear of homeless people.”