New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s longshot presidential campaign rollout was greeted on Thursday morning with a loud and persistent round of Bronx cheers from police union protesters, a bitter welcome from old rivals eager to dampen his new endeavor.
There are greener pastures up ahead, at least as the New York Democrat sets off now to make his way through the Iowa farmlands, but with no promise of a kinder reception. What seems certain is that his decision to hit the presidential hustings is an unpopular one with the folks at home. More than three in four New York City voters said in a recent Quinnipiac University poll that he should pass up a run.
The boo birds were out on Thursday, and not just his serial detractors from the police force. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the Democrat who would ascend to acting mayor if de Blasio were absent for nine straight days (or take his job if the naysayers are proven wrong and de Blasio wins), was critical during a morning interview on a local station.
« If you’re going to run for president, you’ve got to fix these things here first, » Williams said, « or there’s going to be a lot of noise explaining why you shouldn’t be. »
That sort of noise has steadily risen throughout de Blasio’s second term, as his efforts to up his national profile became increasingly apparent. The local papers — the New York Post and Daily News, mostly — have trailed him during his travels to early voting states, often returning home with stories celebrating his stumbles, like the time he got caught in an Iowa blizzard, or, as happened during a recent visit to New Hampshire, gleefully reporting on the sparse audience at a roundtable event on mental health.
« There were also about six reporters on hand, » the Post noted, « to make the room at the Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center look a bit less empty. »
Still, de Blasio is betting on himself. He is no stranger to doubters’ mocking his ambitions. He was no one’s favorite to be elected mayor in 2013, but four years later stormed to a second term in a landslide.
That New York mayors rarely go on to bigger jobs is a truism of city politics. Asked about it during a session with reporters on Thursday afternoon, de Blasio suggested a new political reality could yield surprising results.
« Actually, (there were) only a couple of people who ever tried to seek higher officer and I think each of them had their own challenges, » de Blasio said. « But the truth is we’re in an entirely different time. What we used to think of as the ground rules of the democratic process don’t exist anymore. And we’ve seen in the last few years that people all over this country are looking for change.
