Wednesday, May 15, 2013

THE NYC RACE FOR MAYOR "IS TOO DAMN BORING"


I got a call last Saturday afternoon from a pollster who wanted to know what issue I care most about in the New York City mayoral election. I hung up on the poor sap because I assumed he was trying to steal my identity. Also I had more important things to do - like cut my toenails.


It was however a good question and I would now like say a few things about the NYC Mayoral election  . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . …............... . . . . . . . . sorry I must have dozed off. Where was I? Oh yes- the Mayoral election -


Holy moly!! - what a bunch of lackluster hacks!


For a long time Bloomberg was a welcome relief from Guliani who gave us 8 years of government by temper tantrum along with his motto  “if it pisses off white people I’ll take care of it”.  Tourists loved Guliani for the same reason they love to pose with the naked cowboy in Times Square. I’ll get back to you as soon as I find out what that reason is.


Then came Bloomberg.  As a  “let’s just fix it” engineer/CEO he was initially a welcome change. Like when you replace a noisy old broken air conditioner and you think  how nice  not have to live with that  awful noise any more. Bloomberg was refreshingly untethered by his fortune from NYC’s traditional power bases. He does have one dominant quality that he can’t seem to suppress. He is an elitist arrogant asshole  He spent around $70 million dollars  to buy City Hall, three times. Officially he was elected but in reality his three inaugurations were nothing more than closings.  Now the old air conditioner is getting annoyingly noisy again.


Just when you thought this year’s candidates couldn’t possibly be less interesting they held a forum on animal safety. Christine Quinn boasted that she created a special fund for spaying and neutering. William Thompson mentioned that he once rescued a cat.


It’s May and apparently we have entered the “I am not just a hack” segment of the beauty pageant. This week we got to hear that DiBlasio’s wife used to be gay. Quinn followed that by announcing that she used to have a drinking and eating disorder.  

This all brings me back to the polling guy’s question. What issue in this election do I care most about?  I'm pretty sure it's not pet neutering. It's also not Bill DiBlasio's relationship with his wife or Christine Quinn's relationship with her refrigerator. The thing that keeps coming to mind is the mantra of that oddly appealing nut job candidate Jimmy McMillan who has one issue and one slogan-   “The Rent is Too Damn High”


I keep waiting for one of the candidates to say something  as straight  forward and compelling as that.