{"id":5635,"date":"2009-11-30T10:21:36","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T15:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=5635"},"modified":"2009-11-30T10:21:36","modified_gmt":"2009-11-30T15:21:36","slug":"102_million_and_counting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2009\/11\/102_million_and_counting.html","title":{"rendered":"$102 Million (And Counting*)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/news\/election_2009\/2009\/10\/25\/2009-10-25_mayor_bloomberg_defends_campaign_spending_expected_to_top_100m.html\">&#8220;[i]t costs a lot of money to get a message out and I&#8217;m trying to show what we&#8217;ve done and tell people,&#8221;<\/a> then he shouldn&#8217;t have to be shy about releasing those final numbers. So of course <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/11\/28\/nyregion\/28spending.html\">you do that on one of the slowest news dump days of the year<\/a> &#8212; the Friday after Thanksgiving:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>To eke out an election victory over the city&#8217;s low-key comptroller, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg spent $102 million of his own fortune &#8212; or about $174 per vote &#8212; according to data released Friday, making his bid for a third term the most expensive campaign in the city&#8217;s history.<\/p>\n<p>. . .<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the campaign, the mayor&#8217;s aides sought to project an air of inevitability, but data released on Friday revealed just how anxious they had become in the final weeks.<\/p>\n<p>From Oct. 20 to Nov. 26, his campaign burned through $18.6 million, much of it on last-minute television and radio advertising.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/news\/2009\/11\/29\/2009-11-29_mayor_bloomberg_blows_1021_million_during_campaign_on_lots_of_pizza_coffee_and_c.html\">The Daily News notes what $18.7 million can buy<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>That outlay would cover first-semester tuition for about 8,000 students at Borough of Manhattan Community College (or for 319 freshmen at Bloomberg&#8217;s alma mater, Johns Hopkins).<\/p>\n<p>The reports show visits to some upscale joints, but pizza and Dunkin&#8217; Donuts fare were definitely Team Bloomberg staples.<\/p>\n<p>The total paid to pizza places during that period was more than $17,000 &#8212; enough to pay a minimum-wage worker for 310 days or buy 5,556 gallons of milk.<\/p>\n<p>. . .<\/p>\n<p>The mayor &#8220;is one of the world&#8217;s leading philanthropists and is honored to have assisted organizations in need here [and] around the nation and the globe,&#8221; said spokesman Howard Wolfson.<\/p>\n<p>Baruch College Prof. Doug Muzzio jokingly said that with all the money being thrown around, the City Council &#8212; which altered the term-limits law to let Bloomberg run a third time &#8212; &#8220;should pass legislation to force this guy to run every year. We could solve the recession,&#8221; he kidded.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>*On account of the mayor still has to pay out bonuses to campaign staffers &#8212; since under Bloomberg, campaigns are treated like flush years at Goldman Sachs &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/01\/did_we_happen_t.html\">in 2005, these totaled more than $1.5 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>See also: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/bigmap\/citywide\/bloombergformayor2009\/index.htm\">Bloomberg For Mayor 2009<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If &#8220;[i]t costs a lot of money to get a message out and I&#8217;m trying to show what we&#8217;ve done and tell people,&#8221; then he shouldn&#8217;t have to be shy about releasing those final numbers. So of course you do that on one of the slowest news dump days of the year &#8212; the Friday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-things_that_make_you_go_oy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5636,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5635\/revisions\/5636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}