Know the News: The 2013 mayoral race and 24/7 politics

Politics has become a 24/7, 365 days a year obsession for many media outlets and there is an explosion of jobs at places like politico.com and elsewhere. It is true in New York as well. Today, the Wall Street Journal surveyed the field for the 2013 mayoral race with a long 29 months to go before voters go to the polls.

The story is pasted below (because it is behind the pay wall at the Journal). It will give you an idea of the political landscape in the city.

Also, with the 2012 election campaign likely to be at a fever pitch in the spring, you might want to consider taking Peter Beinart’s National Political Reporting class, which is a second semester elective.

Staking Out Slot In Race for Mayor

By Michael Howard Saul

(Copyright (c) 2011, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

A week after Rep. Anthony Weiner resigned and all but dashed his chances of becoming the city’s next mayor, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio held court under the chandeliers of a Waldorf-Astoria ballroom.

“I give Anthony credit for having talked about a lot of the economic reality that people are facing [and] obviously for focusing, particularly, on the needs of the outer boroughs,” Mr. de Blasio said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal at the Midtown hotel, where he was holding a fund-raiser. “That’s something I’m doing as public advocate. I’m certainly going to be doing a lot of that as I talk about what our economy is doing.”

In the wake of Mr. Weiner’s sudden exit from Congress after admitting he engaged in lewd online exchanges with women, Mr. de Blasio and other potential mayoral candidates are moving quickly to seize the opportunity left by Mr. Weiner’s political collapse. Mr. Weiner, who represented a swath of Queens and Brooklyn for 12 1/2 years, was considered a front-runner in the 2013 race.

People familiar with the public advocate’s thinking said Mr. de Blasio believes he is well-positioned to assume Mr. Weiner’s mantle as champion of the middle-class and the boroughs outside Manhattan.

Another person, speaking about Mr. de Blasio’s thinking regarding the new post-Weiner landscape, said, “It’s now clearer than ever to Bill and his supporters that the stars are aligned for 2013, and Bill is capitalizing on it.”

Certainly, Mr. de Blasio, a former Brooklyn City Council member who served as campaign manager for Hillary Clinton’s successful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2000, isn’t the only potential candidate hoping to grab hold of Mr. Weiner’s political base.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and former Comptroller Bill Thompson — each potential nods for the Democratic nomination — are also looking at ways they can attract voters who might have been leaning toward Mr. Weiner.

During his formal remarks at the June 23 fund-raiser, Mr. de Blasio didn’t mention Mr. Weiner by name. But after weeks of intense public scrutiny into Mr. Weiner’s personal life — he’s married to Huma Abedin, an aide to Mrs. Clinton, and they’re expecting their first child — Mr. de Blasio sought to present to his supporters a picture of domestic bliss.

“Bill still brings me home flowers,” his wife, Chirlane McCray, told the crowd of roughly 200 who generated $250,000 for her husband’s campaign. “Awww,” the crowd cooed.

“For me it was absolutely love at first sight,” Mr. de Blasio said. “For her, it took quite a bit longer.”

Mr. de Blasio also introduced the couple’s children and made reference to the challenges of an interracial marriage. Mr. de Blasio is white; Ms. McCray is black.

“We weren’t sure, you know, how we could make this work,” he said, referring to their initial courtship when they met during David Dinkins’s administration two decades ago.

In an interview, Ms. McCray said she wants her husband to run for mayor. “I’m right beside him,” she said. “He’s born to lead.”

Mr. de Blasio said the city’s economic future is the issue that is at the forefront of New Yorkers’ minds. “This city government right now is saying and doing precious little to create jobs, and it’s my job to do something about it,” he said. (Mayor Michael Bloomberg has long defended his record promoting economic development and steering the city through the recession.)

Like other potential candidates, Mr. de Blasio faces plenty of challenges, most notably a lack of name recognition citywide.

A NY1-Marist poll from April showed Mr. de Blasio toward the bottom of the pack of potential Democratic mayoral contenders. According to the poll, 9% of Democrats said they would support him, compared with 15% for Mr. Thompson and 13% for both Ms. Quinn and City Comptroller John Liu, another potential candidate. In that poll, 18% said they supported Mr. Weiner and 4% backed Mr. Stringer, while 27% were undecided.

As public advocate, Mr. de Blasio is next in line of succession to the mayor. But his governmental authority is much more limited than, for example, Ms. Quinn, who is arguably the second most powerful official in city government.

Both Ms. Quinn and Mr. Liu also have the advantage of luring voters with the potential for a historic mayoral election: Ms. Quinn would be the city’s first female and openly gay mayor, and Mr. Liu would be the city’s first Asian-American mayor.

Mr. de Blasio’s longstanding liberal views — he’s called on the president to move faster to end the war in Afghanistan and he’s leading a national campaign against corporate political spending — could appeal to many of the left-leaning members of the Democratic Party who vote in the primary.

But his views could pose problems in a general election, especially in the more conservative neighborhoods outside Manhattan.

With the race more than two years away, Mr. de Blasio is focused on locking up supporters and financial backers. He has lured some celebrity power in actress Cynthia Nixon, one of the stars of “Sex and the City” and a longtime New York activist.

“Bill would be a great mayor,” she said. “He’s a really rare combination of a totally savvy, astute political thinker and a person who won’t compromise on his values.”