Category Archives: TSR

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New York City will elect a new mayor this year.

The field of announced and presumed contenders aiming to replace outgoing Mayor Mike Bloomberg has taken on a more serious shape in the last month or two.

TSR has compiled a list of the major candidates with observations about each. The names below are positioned in order of their likelihood of winning the general election. The name at the top is most likely to succeed Mayor Mike and the name at the bottom has no shot.

Christine Quinn – It’ll take something unforeseen for the City Council speaker to lose this race but her political ascension is built largely on selfishness and shadiness. Quinn has been allowed unhindered facilitation/oversight of a taxpayer-funded slush fund for council members loyal to her ambition and has managed to perpetrate an even worse racket on the city’s electorate. She privately agreed to help Bloomberg prior to his 2009 re-election win by pushing through legislation that overturned two city-wide votes that had imposed a two-term limit on the mayor and city council members. It was a dirty, rotten exchange of favors. Quinn pressured the council to hand a one-time term limit exemption for Mayor Mike. In exchange, Quinn was invited to stand prominently next to the Mayor at all of his public events during his ill-gotten third term. Quinn was anointed Mayor Mike’s favored successor by him in return for her invalidation of the public will. It’s disgusting. Quinn can’t be trusted to lead the city. She’s not the progressive voice she claims to be. Her openness as a lesbian and support for gay marriage is admirable but the methodology fueling her obsessive drive to move up the political ladder has drained her of the credibility needed to fill the shoes of a mayor who was by-and-large effective because he wasn‘t bought off. Quinn has stonewalled legislation supported by a liberal coalition of Council members that would require small businesses to provide five sick days to hundreds of thousands of workers who currently receive none. She skips out to a summer home in New Jersey on a lot of weekends and doesn’t appear to have leadership intangibles that would come in handy when a crisis looms. I could be wrong on that last count. Sometimes those traits don’t reveal themselves until the kitchen gets hot. Quinn is getting union cash and support not because she’s labor’s friend but because she’s the front-runner. She’s probably gonna be the next mayor unless a lot of voters realize how hollow her credentials are.

Joe Lhota – Rudy Giuliani’s top lieutenant in the 90’s has an open path to the GOP nomination. His competent oversight of the region’s public transit system before and immediately after Hurricane Sandy raised his profile. Rather than continue the difficult work of running the MTA, Lhota jumped ship soon after he got the trains running again post-storm. I understand Lhota’s thinking. He probably should have waited four more years but couldn’t resist running now given his near-automatic advancement into the general. Lhota will no doubt consult often with Rudy. He has no reason to downplay those ties. New York magazine‘s fine political writer Chris Smith has suggested Governor Cuomo is quietly rooting for Lhota, too. How Lhota fares in a likely head-to-head with Quinn may hinge in part on the success of Adolfo Carrion’s independent run. If Carrion somehow gains traction, that would hurt Lhota’s chances. But I’d expect Lhota to be a major factor in this election if he can articulate his vision and be more confident about explaining his accomplishments in both the public and private sector. We haven’t had a democrat as mayor in 20 years and if Carrion gets out of the way, Lhota could beat Quinn.

Bill Thompson – The soft-spoken former city comptroller lost to Mayor Mike four years ago by just four points despite being out-spent by more than a hundred million dollars. Some of his support last time out may be attributable to backlash on the Quinn/Bloomberg term limit manipulation but Thompson’s performance in that race makes him the most formidable challenger to the front-runner during primary season. He’s the lone black candidate and according to the Times, he has cultivated a strong relationship with Jewish voters. He’s a reserved guy in public forums but holds his own on policy matters from education to finance to transportation. I like him but he needs to be more aggressive about alerting the electorate that Quinn gained her current advantage through illegitimate means. That’s not Thompson’s style but it’s the only way he can make a dent in Quinn’s mammoth lead in the polls.

Bill deBlasio – He’s six-foot-five and the most liberal candidate of the bunch. DeBlasio will likely get my vote although he rankled me a bit when he seemed to suggest he was open to a roll-back of some bike lanes in the big city. Not since Freddy Ferrer have we had a major mayoral candidate who speaks frankly about the “two New Yorks.” DeBlasio’s passionate focus on the city’s have-nots is much-needed after more than a decade with a billionaire running city hall. I just don’t know if six months is enough for the big guy to spread his message far enough to get into a run-off with Quinn. Thompson will siphon off a chunk of the anti-Quinn vote and I don’t see how deBlasio can get beyond 25 or 30 percent of the primary vote. One recommendation I would have for deBlasio’s camp is to publicize all of his stump stops on his web site or Twitter page. He’s very warm and skilled socially when he‘s out on the trail. He spends a lot of time in the outer boroughs and is tuned in to city government’s inclination to give Manhattan preferential treatment at the expense of Queens and the Bronx. DeBlasio is the city’s Public Advocate, a toothless paid executive branch position that ought to be eliminated. No Public Advocate has gone on to become mayor since the job was created 20 years ago.

Adolfo Carrion – The former Bronx borough president has withdrawn from the democratic party to throw a wrench in the mayor’s race as an independent candidate. It’s not clear whether he’ll make much of a dent with voters, especially if the campaign finance questions dogging his effort continue to swirl. I’m all for ballot access and ballot choice, but I’d prefer a straight up two party battle for mayor this time around and I hope Carrion doesn’t mess that up.

John Liu – Once considered a rising star in the democratic party, Liu is more likely to end up in jail than Gracie Mansion. It’s a joke Liu has remained the city’s comptroller after his campaign was swarmed by federal investigators. Liu’s game to this point has been to mask illegal campaign cash from accurate disclosure by attaching phony names to legal donation increments. Two top Liu associates face federal charges and it’s hard to fathom how Liu doesn’t eventually go down with them either politically or legally. What bothers me is how Liu remains preachy on the subject of ethics while performing politically-motivated audits. Liu is still taken seriously here in Queens by several of the neighborhood newspapers and machine politicians. I don’t see how that’s possible.

John Catsimatidis – The billionaire boss of the Gristedes supermarket chain will pick up some votes in Astoria. He has no shot city-wide. The money he blows on a vanity campaign will benefit few beyond the media outlets that run his commercials.

Two names are not on this list. Anthony Weiner and Daniel Squadron. Weiner was considered a lock to win the mayor’s race in 2013 before he completely lost his shit on Twitter. Squadron is a state senator in an oddly-shaped district covering Greenpoint, Brooklyn Heights and a large swath of lower Manhattan. He’s managed to rise above the lunacy and crookedness that rules the state senate. Squadron is running for Public Advocate this time around. He’ll win and he’ll someday be mayor of New York City.

There’s still strong disagreement over when the primary election will be held this year but as it stands now, primary voters will select their nominee in September. If the primary winner fails to garner 40-percent of the vote, the top two vote-getters would enter a run-off two weeks later. Expect polling places to be as disorganized as they were in November 2012.

The general election campaign will be compressed into just five or six weeks with New York’s next mayor decided November 5, 2013.

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a boat on Destin Harbor - 2-27-13

Most of the snowbirds and spring breakers who flock here to the Emerald Coast near Destin, FL don’t arrive until mid-March when average high temps rise into the upper 60’s/low 70’s.

My folks play a different angle. They rent a spacious apartment above a pristine beach on Okaloosa Island during the month of February (and the first week of March) when the fee is about half the cost of staying in these parts during peak tourist season.

Since baking in a hot sun is no longer part of their routine, they successfully manage to escape the snow and cold of suburban Chicago for five weeks without paying through the nose. They take long walks along the Gulf of Mexico. They go to restaurants that aren’t yet crowded with visitors. And they sit on their fifth floor balcony and watch surfer guys in wetsuits try to catch a wave. It’s usually not balmy when they’re here but it’s not bad. Low to mid 60’a in the daytime. Brisk at night.

It’s another stop on their retirement enjoyment tour. Now a good decade in progress, my parents have had a good ride since walking away intact from their respective careers.

Their rental apartment on Okaloosa Isle has all sorts of extra room to crash so I decided to drop in on them Tuesday. After a three and a half hour flight to Houston, I jumped on a one hour connecting trip to the commercial airport adjoining Eglin Air Force Base in Valparaiso, FL. Aside from its convenient location, the best part of flying in and out of Northwest Florida Regional Airport is the visual access you get to an otherwise off-limits military installation. As one’s commercial flight taxis to the gate after landing, you pass by hundreds of millions of dollars worth of US military aircraft. Fighter jets are parked in small, individual hangars without doors and huge transport craft can be seen too.

The thundering crackles of F-16 engines gunning in and out of Eglin can be heard if you spend anytime outdoors here.

Daniel D. Bohannon Field - 2-26-13

Florida’s high school basketball season wraps up this weekend with title games in Lakeland, but baseball is in full swing despite its “spring” season designation. We took in a contest Tuesday night at Daniel Bohannon Field on the campus of Fort Walton Beach High School. The 630 PM start time was set late to accommodate the hour and fifteen minute bus ride for opponent Mosley HS located in Lynn Haven near Panama City.

A couple hundred people filled the home side’s bleachers despite a stiff wind and temps in the low 50’s. Mosley routed Fort Walton 10-2. Lanky starting pitcher Andrew Duramo struck out nine for Mosley. After the home plate ump changed his ruling from a foul tip to a hit by pitch during a Fort Walton rally effort in the bottom of the fourth, a handful of fans from Mosley howled in protest. The catcalls aimed at the home plate ump were more aggressive than the situation called for given the bang-bang nature of the original call and the wide discrepancy in the score at the time. Interestingly, those leading the harassment of the home plate ump after the reversal were confronted by fans of the home team. “Way to be a good role model for the kids,” said one adult supporting Fort Walton. After a few exchanges along these lines, the shouting stopped. It was awkward to hear parents arguing with each other at a high school event but it was an excellent example of the long width on the adult behavioral spectrum when games are viewed as something more than they are.

A four-dollar admission charge was collected at a card table set up on sandy ground behind a permanent concrete structure that housed the ballpark’s concession stand and press box. Among the food items being sold was “homemade” hot chili and fried chicken sandwiches.

We had dinner before the game at Stewby’s Seafood Shanty on Racetrack Road in Fort Walton. The restaurant is housed in a modified portable school classroom and serves Gulf seafood caught from fishing boats based in Destin. I had the grilled “fish of the day” platter. Four small pieces of delicious grilled amberjack were served on a plastic plate with hush puppies and a couple lemon wedges. It was fantastic. After we finished our meal, the restaurant’s young proprietor Stewart Taylor stopped by our table and asked how everything was. Taylor’s father Sam ran a popular seafood restaurant in the area spanning three decades before dying in 1985. Backed with the deep knowledge of his father’s enterprise, Stewby is running a great little place that I would highly recommend if you ever find yourself in the Fort Walton area.

On Wednesday afternoon, we saw the matinee showing of Zero Dark Thirty at the Regal Sun Plaza Stadium 8 in Fort Walton Beach. My first reaction to the 157-minute portrayal of the CIA’s hunt for bin Laden is that conservatives had no good reason to complain the movie’s release was timed to help Obama’s re-election chances.

The film does no real favors for the President. The systematic use of torture under GWB’s leadership in the aftermath of 9/11 may have been curtailed by a leader deemed more progressive but most movie-goers know the capture and assassination of OBL came after a decade of chasing intelligence by an infrastructure that included oversight by Obama’s predecessor in the White House. Assuming the real-life facts assembled as a composite story in Zero Dark are true, partial credit for the take-down of number one on the hit list spans the reigns of both commanders.

The film’s best sequence is a well-done piece of Hollywood dazzle. The audience is pulled to seat’s edge as the Black Hawks charge into Pakistan and the Seals enter a compound that matches the pictures that were fed to us when news of the mission was disseminated.

I thought Zero Dark was a better film than Argo although Kathryn Bigelow’s use of actors Jennifer Ehle as a top intelligence official and Jim Gandolfini as Leon Panetta were cringe-inducing.

The street scenes in Pakistan appear authentic given they were shot in India. The movie ends without any depiction of the disposal of OBL’s body. Among the many questions the movie provoked in my mind is how the US managed to pull off an attack deep in the heart of Pakistan without immediate efforts to stop it by the home turf’s military/security. The forty minutes or so needed to complete the mission would have surely been too much to ask for in most well-fortified sovereign lands and so that aspect of the attack strikes me as hard to believe.