And of course he's not mayor yet, I shouldn't count chickens.
I'm pretty sure if pictures of his balls existed, they'd have already gone to the media by now.
Balls and chickens are counted using the same terms. At least in most cultures.
I could see a city that elected and reelected Giuliani and Bloomberg going with Lhota over the lefty. But I haven't seen any polls on the matchup.
SO NYC was verrry slow to finalize presidential election counts (but, of course, Sandy*). Is there any sense of the number of outstanding votes and whether they are likely to preferentially break one way or another (absentees, for instance).
*And I guess this election was also back to the levers?
4: This is impressionistic, not based on polling, and maybe I'm just wrong on everything. But all of the Giuliani/Bloomberg elections felt either fluky or like the fix was in (not election fraud that I have any reason to believe, just no serious campaigning on the other side).
Giuliani's first was a squeaker against Dinkins, and he won on racism, with the cops campaigning heavily against Dinkins as a 'washroom attendant'. And Dinkins, as an upper middle class tennis player who looked comfortable in a tux, didn't have the populist appeal to bring out the Democratic base. I'm drawing a blank on Giuliani's second -- was the Dem Ruth Messinger? But I remember it being hard to tell that anyone was running against him. Giuliani really didn't ever seem popular at all in NYC, and while that's partially a function of my Pauline-Kaeldom, I think it's truer than people who weren't living here realized.
Bloomberg initially got the handoff from Giuliani weeks after 9-11, which was the only point at which Giuliani was actually popular. Without 9-11, I think there's a very good chance he wouldn't have won. And then the next two elections, while I can't defend this in detail, looked like he bought off community groups that might have opposed him and advertised like mad, against Democratic opponents who weren't campaigning hard. And he still wasn't winning in blowouts.
It's a long, unpleasant string of Republican mayors, but I think it says much less about the NYC electorate than you'd think on the face of it.
You don't think de Blasio would lose the finance crowd who would then spend however many brazilian dollars to get him beat?
What does Brazil have to do with this?
I was surprised Quinn tanked so. Wasn't she the favorite for most of the campaign? (I didn't pay tons of attention.) The Times suggested people blamed her for Bloomberg getting a third term and voted accordingly.
9 - Of course he will lose them, and they're already gearing up to spend, but as demonstrated by the thumping Quinn just took, even in today's New York the Richie Riches are hugely outnumbered.
10: I've had that stupid joke stuck in my head all morning, is what.
In other news, the absolutely repugnant Charles Hynes got turfed despite some old-school machine ballot-stuffing.
11: I think that's right. Or really, I think people perceived her as Bloomberg's successor generally, and didn't like him much -- like I'd said, he wasn't winning on popularity, he was buying elections. I'd assumed that he was going to buy her the election (somehow, evading campaign finance rules) as a deal for good service in the past, and that doesn't seem to have happened. Without heavy backing from Bloomberg, the association with him hurt her, and she wasn't popular enough on her own accord to get past it.
8- That description sort of sounds similar to several consecutive MA governor elections. Fortunately we put and end to that shit.
I always figured the problem in MA gubernatorial elections was some combination of complacency and moribundness (moribundity?) on the part of the MA democratic party (and here on your left, you'll note the wax statue of Martha Coakley); maybe that's also what LB is talking about?
12: even in today's New York the Richie Riches are hugely outnumbered.
So far, electorally speaking.
Then there was the educated Texan from Texas who looked like someone in Technicolor and felt, patriotically, that people of means - decent folk - should be given more votes than drifters, whores, criminals, degenerates, atheists and indecent folk - people without means.
11: Interesting that they did not instead blame the people who voted for him. I suppose one can't throw out the voters and elect new ones.
17: Yeah, a lot of that; a bunch of the recent mayoral elections it seemed as if the Democrats were really sitting out.
Yeah, running a competent Democrat whose husband wasn't an Enron lobbyist -- O'Brien only hit .500 there -- probably yields a Romney loss in 2002. Running John Silber on a "defeat the homosexuals and welfare mothers" candidacy is a good strategy for Massachusetts in 1970, but probably not so much in 1990. (The other losses boil down to "it's pretty hard to beat a competent and non-corrupt incumbent", although it can certainly be done.)
Weiner still got more votes than the winning Republican candidate!
I'm pretty sure his wife is going to stab him or divorce him or something now that the election is over.
8: No offense, but painting the past 5 elections as every one of them exceptions to the rule isn't very convincing. Presumably money is one of the reasons the Democrats have been so consistently tepid.
IIRC both Giuliani and Bloomberg were very popular in their first terms, increasingly less so in their later ones. I mean still hated by a strong 30% or so, but popular enough to completely scare off rivals. (Of course I wasn't living in New York for any but a very tiny bit of their reigns). I have a friend who worked on the Mark Green campaign in 2001, he wasn't an obviously terrible candidate and they thought he had a good shot, but he just got beat.
26: he wasn't an obviously terrible candidate
Aside from that public statement that given the circumstances of 9/11, maybe we'd all be better off cancelling the election and leaving Giuliani in office. After that, he didn't have a hope in hell.
Giuliani seriously popular ever? His elections were pretty close, and he was seriously unpopular among minority communities, and not universally beloved by whites. I may be understating this, but I think he had a hard core of Staten Island/Queens white supporters, and then a lot of people who didn't think much of him but thought less of the opposing Dems.
25: You're right about the unconvincingness-- that's a long string of elections. Really, I have a vague, unsubstantiated belief that the NYC Democratic party was bought off (exactly how? no idea) on a bunch of them; the candidates and campaigning were so lackluster.
His balls look like chickens?!
When both are plucked, it's hard to miss the resemblance.
29: Yeah, I'd believe anything from straight-up corruption to Dem leaders think their donors' interests are best served by Republican mayors.
Giuliani was pretty popular at first, that's why the Messeger campaign seemed like such a joke - she was a sacrificial lamb. Every single person I knew in NYC who wasn't a grad student was pro-Giuliani back then and were always very surprised to hear I wasn't.
Bloomberg was quite popular at first, he even beat Ferrer among black IIRC. I preferred Bloomberg to Ferrer, though I didn't vote for him, not willing to pull the Republican lever unless Ferrer actually had a chance, and he didn't. Bloomberg inherited a budget mess, solved it by raising taxes in a progressive manner while cutting spending in a non regressive one, complete with progressive rhetoric (the rich can afford to pay more, the poor can't afford to loose their services). He was also a competent manager and the 311 system was an excellent idea. Ferrer was a very conservative pro-life anti-gay 'pro-business' dem who suddenly changed his mind on everything when he decided he wanted to become mayor. Competent authoritarian centrist technocrat vs the NYC equivalent of a blue dog with nothing to indicate competence. Bloomberg then moved a bit to the right and became even more authoritarian. These trends got worse in his third term.
Giuliani seriously popular ever? His elections were pretty close
He won by a dozen points in 1997. That's not close. He lost the Bronx by a large margin, won Manhattan by a narrow won, had a solid (nine point) margin in Brooklyn and landslide victories in SI and Queens. In a (narrow) majority white electorate a candidate that can get huge margins among whites and over a third of the non white vote is going to do fine.
Every single person I knew in NYC who wasn't a grad student was pro-Giuliani back then and were always very surprised to hear I wasn't.
Different social circles, I guess. People I knew thought Jimmy Breslin had him pegged: "A small man in search of a balcony." My cousin Bobby the mob lawyer loved him, but Bobby was always kind of a crook.
Giuliani seriously popular ever? His elections were pretty close, and he was seriously unpopular among minority communities, and not universally beloved by whites. I may be understating this, but I think he had a hard core of Staten Island/Queens white supporters, and then a lot of people who didn't think much of him but thought less of the opposing Dems.
This seems pretty Pauline Kaely to me. For the 1997 campaign, Wikipedia is quoting polls giving him 68% approval rating. And the vote tallies from minorities seem pretty high for a Republican.
32: You're right, I should have said the election against Dinkins was close. He blew Messinger out of the water percentage-wise, but IIRC turnout was really low; you could hardly tell an election was happening at all. Over 700,000 fewer voters than the prior two elections. That doesn't look like popularity for Giuliani, that looks like no one had any interest in Messinger.
When both are plucked
Manscaping: You're Doing it Wrong.
the candidates and campaigning were so lackluster.
Only been around for the last couple, but I've always found Thompson to be tepid. Last night was the first time he sounded really fired up, and now it's too late for him (sounds like he's beginning to get leaned on to bow out).
Yet Bloomberg spent $100 million in '09 and barely squeaked by him.
On an unrelated note, I think Bloomberg's stock will only go up, and history will judge him very favorably.
(My favorite bit of the '09 campaign was the "Hope"-style posters someone put up with C. Montgomery that said: "No third terms / Vote for Burns!")
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Did I mention I've got more skin cancer? Still harmless, not the bad kind or anything, but kids! don't be like me! Stay out of the sun.
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sorry to hear it LB! Feel (?) better. Dig that sucker out.
Apparently the scar I got out of the last one is badass, so that's something.
I should probably get checked again. I've got the freckles/red hair combo of vulnerability.
I am feeling kind of reassured by the experience. Both times I went to the dermatologist because I identified something as disturbing, and both times I was right, so I'm feeling good about my ability to spot bits of my skin that have turned against me, and distinguish them from the rest of my lumpy, spotty, but not yet disloyal integument.
42: You have suddenly become little Ronnie Howard, circa The Music Man, in my head. Sorry about that.
I brought it on myself. For the record, my hair got less red as I aged and I kept more of it than Howard.
Sorry, LB. I have one of my periodic skin checks coming up in a couple of weeks. So far, so good, but I too have the freckles/red hair combo and a history of horrible childhood sunburns.
Moby's a ginger? Everything just changed.
I wouldn't go that far. Anymore I have to spend a couple of days in the sun before you can tell.
I've never had any red in my hair, barring a Clairol-powered couple of years in law school, but I've got no melanin at all inbetween my freckles.
28 makes me nostalgic for the days of neb's old Google Images result.
I wish there was a hat I could wear to work and the like that would shade my face and neck but not make me look like an ass.
but not make more of me look like an ass?
Join the dark side of full acceptance of being an ass, and wear a bright fedora. Yours should be crimson.
http://fab.com/product/pith-helmet-red-385608
http://www.target.com/p/adult-bacon-costume-one-size-fits-most/-/A-14132062
56.2 fails even without the aesthetic criteria.
http://www.paleotube.com/m/photos/get_image/file/afe457814d080be569058d4a5abd009c.jpg
Then, with my t-shirt, I'd have four wolves.
Those hilarious links are from me.
OK, one more best of the bunch.
I shouldn't post more because this is juvenile
Oof, the chairwoman of Thompson's campaign says it's a "clear victory" for DeBlasio. You kind of have to concede at that point, right?
A friend who lives in the Bay Area was telling me recently about how Oakland instituted Instant Runoff Voting and ended up with a mayor who was very few people's first choice and is apparently pretty incompetent.
ended up with a mayor who was very few people's first choice and is apparently pretty incompetent.
We got that, but it was because somebody died.
"Mayor X died, people died" doesn't have the same ring to it.
63.2: Not exactly. It was more or less a three-way race, but the frontrunner (Perata) got only 34% of the first-choice vote, versus 25% for Quan and 22% for Kaplan. About three-quarters of Kaplan voters (including me) made Quan their second pick, which together with the redistribution of votes for minor candidates pushed Quan over the top.
Kaplan and Quan were politically much closer to each other than to Perata, so it resembled coalition-building. Changing the electoral system can't be expected to make the candidates better, but it can make the process more meaningful, and I'd say it did that.
No, wait, I wasn't a resident then. But I would have voted that way.
In answer to my 5: Mr. de Blasio had won 40.3 percent of the vote, just over the 40 percent required by law to avoid a runoff, but there were more than 16,000 paper ballots, some still arriving by mail, that could push Mr. de Blasio below that threshold when they are counted next week.
If the candidate totals in the NYT are correct and there are 16,000 ballots left, by my calculations Di Blasio (who is currently 2013 votes aboye the threshold) would need to get at least 26.8% of that vote to stay north of 40%.
52: the pith helmet is the clear choice. You know who wore pith helmets? Not only Michael Caine in "Zulu", but also the Vietnamese People's Army. They're bipartisan!
Or you could rock this look and offend any passing South Americans:
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01618/rex_main_1618738a.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4640457/sir-rex-hunt-has-died.html&h=866&w=620&sz=82&tbnid=w_dpUuK9RxUODM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=64&zoom=1&usg=__jU7A5fFex95kjOpzD4_kwGT_We8=&docid=HB9aKYq34jcvtM&sa=X&ei=YpMxUsDLPKOL7AaG9ICICg&ved=0CEgQ9QEwBQ&dur=3254
The pith helmet is coming up as a sponsored post in my FB feed now because I followed the link.
Pith helmet + see-through blouse = fashion win!
(Or is this the wrong thread for that?)
The mysterious Mayor X, secretly Speed Mayor's brother!
69: Per this article, there are probably more ballots to count--19,000 paper ballots and not everything form the voting machines counted.
