Conveniently Forgetting The Vast Wisdom Of The 282,344 Primary Voters (A Staggering 6.6% Of New York City’s 4.3 Million Registered Voters) Who Catapulted Him To Worldwide Greatness

And somehow comes off as more out of touch than “his predecessor” (as he likes to refer to him):

As for his own record, the mayor apparently thinks non-New Yorkers are the ones who really grasp the breadth of his achievements.

“A lot of people outside New York City understand what happened in the first year of New York City better than people in New York City,” he told Rolling Stone.

Alternate Headline: “Mayor De Blasio Revives Plan For A Subway Line Running Straight Into Hurricane Zone 3”

Or whatever:

Among the far-reaching ambitions of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s OneNYC plan, one proposal stood out in the transportation world on Wednesday: the study of a new subway line along Utica Avenue in Brooklyn.

[. . .]

Transit advocates quickly pointed out that Mr. de Blasio had not offered a financing plan for an extension, and that the authority already had a $15 billion gap for its five-year capital plan for improvements to the aging system.

In Which Clinton Reprises The 3 AM Call Ad, Except It’s A 9:30 AM Call . . .

On the one hand it’s like “You’re kidding, right?” On the other hand, I really, really want to see that ad:

“With Warren saying she’s not running, de Blasio and his advisers are trying to position the mayor as the ‘draft’ candidate for the left in 2016. That’s why he refused to endorse Hillary last week,” contended the operative, who is involved in presidential politics.

The draft effort explains why de Blasio was accompanied last week on his “progressive” speech-making trip to Iowa by John Del Cecato, one of the nation’s most important Democratic communications strategists and the man responsible for the popular “Dante” TV spot that helped get de Blasio elected mayor, said the operative.

“Why would your ad maker be traveling with you in a non-campaign year? Why was he there with de Blasio in Iowa unless you’re trying for something bigger?” asked the operative.

As The Old Saying Goes, I’d Rather Be A Fulminating Moron On This Week Or Face The Nation Or Meet The Press Than Mayor Of New York

A goatee of the mind:

On a two-day tour of Nebraska and Iowa — more than 1,200 miles from the New York City Hall where he has presided for 15 months — Mr. de Blasio is seeking to transcend his relative obscurity and jump-start a countrywide movement to promote liberal policies like raising taxes on the rich.

Already, the mayor’s effort is drawing scrutiny. His refusal this week to endorse the presidential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton, his former boss, spurred criticism from more centrist Democrats, who questioned whether the mayor had earned the credibility to drive an insurgency within his party.

Mr. de Blasio’s aides did not anticipate the fierceness of the backlash to his comments about Mrs. Clinton, according to several people familiar with their thinking, but the episode underscored the notion that he could be positioned as the standard-bearer for the American left.

That is an image the mayor is keen to cultivate. A profile in Rolling Stone magazine is in the works. A forum for presidential candidates is being planned. The mayor will travel to Milwaukee and Washington this spring, and his aides are eyeing a West Coast trip to confer with liberal leaders in California.

[. . .]

Friends and colleagues of Mr. de Blasio’s say that his idea for a liberal coalition — it has not yet been given a formal name — is fueled by genuine moral dismay at the rise of economic inequality and that he wants to take advantage of his bully pulpit while it lasts.

(Remember, only a public advocate would conceive of a mayoralty as a “bully pulpit.”)

Please Do Not Hesitate To Contact My Office If You Have Any Concerns, Including But Not Limited To Vacuous Gladhanding, Vapid Grandstanding, Vacant Rhetoric And/Or The Status Of Any Long-Lost Goatee

“But no mayor in the better part of a century has won re-election in the face of deep hostility from the business community”:

More than a year after taking office, Mr. de Blasio is engaged in his first sustained courtship of the city’s most powerful private sector executives. The mayor, who ran for office railing against “moneyed interests,” is now making what corporate chieftains describe as a long-delayed, sometimes awkward, attempt to meet them on their home turf.

He has wooed them in private phone calls and unannounced meetings at City Hall, and has staged several striking events: On a visit last month to Morgan Stanley, for example, he posed for selfies with employees and joked that moving into Gracie Mansion was like living in a museum. [. . .]

[. . .]

In an early appearance before the Partnership for New York City, a powerful business group, last May, Mr. de Blasio startled those on hand by referring to financial services as a “legacy industry,” a relatively static sector inherited from an earlier time. After the mayor left the room, several financiers voiced umbrage at the remark, according to attendees who asked for anonymity to discuss what they said was a tense private meeting.

But Mr. de Blasio has continued to appear at events hosted by the partnership, insistently asking executives affiliated with the group to contact his office with any concerns. [. . .]