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Mike Bloomberg on Government ReformMayor of New York City (Independent) |
"Government by three men in a room has turned New York State into a national symbol of governmental dysfunction. Enough is enough!"
More than once, Bloomberg's ambitions outran his political skills and led to highly visible defeats. He failed to lure the Olympics to NY or build a grand stadium in a dilapidated stretch pf Manhattan. He lost a campaign to force private cars out of midtown, and while his overhaul of the city schools is in itself an achievement, whether it will produce a better-educated generation is a matter of protracted debate.
Bloomberg actually owed his job to that law, which had forced an obviously reluctant Rudy Giuliani to depart from City Hall. Moreover, Bloomberg had consistently and vehemently supported the limits. "This is an outrage!" he exclaimed in 2005, when the city council toyed with a plan to extend the limit on everyone's service from 2 terms to 3. "There's no organization that I know," Bloomberg had said, "that would put somebody in charge for a long period of time. You always want turnover and change. 8 years is great. You learn for 4 years. You can do for 4 years."
On October 2, Bloomberg made it official, announcing his 3rd-term plan, citing a "crisis of confidence" in the economy,
By the mayor’s count, his administration is fulfilling 96% of the 100 promises made during the 2005 campaign. More than 91% of the 482 promises made during the 2005 and 2001 campaigns are completed or are being implemented, he said.
“I’m not running for president, but I do think that every presidential candidate should put out a list of every single one of the key issues,” Bloomberg said. “If some of them miss some of them, go and get them to fill those in and create a matrix. This is what I’d do.”
Everybody was terrified and nobody knew what was going to happen. And the thought of changing mayors at that time made a lot of people very, very, very scared. When he came up with that idea, Giuliani's advisors wanted to do what was right for the city. Interestingly, Bloomberg didn't think so. The only thing I can think of is that Bloomberg was being very closely advised by Koch, who probably understood the dynamics of politics better than anyone, and might have said to him, "It's a mistake; you can't change constitutional terms."