Last Call For Debasing De Blasio

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has done some pretty good things for the Big Apple, but he's made a lot of political enemies on the way.  Less than two years since he took office, the long knives are definitely out for him.

Mayor Bill de Blasio was already having a bad week. Then Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo called. 

Mr. Cuomo had cast the city as slow-footed in responding to a recent outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the Bronx. Fed up, Mr. de Blasio’s press secretary, Karen Hinton, issued a sharp retort. “What about the state’s performance?” she said to a reporter. “What has the state been doing to prevent this disease?” 

Taken aback, the governor quickly called Mr. de Blasio. Aides at City Hall, themselves startled by the remark, issued an unusual clarification: The mayor’s chief spokeswoman, the public face of the administration, had not been speaking for the mayor. 

The episode, recounted by several people familiar with the discussion, was an extraordinary public moment of discord, laying bare a host of challenges confronting the de Blasio administration in a messy second year: tension among aides; a perilous, often powerless relationship with Mr. Cuomo, a fellow Democrat; and the struggles of Mr. de Blasio, a political operative by training, to control the perception of his stewardship. 

When the mayor’s top political aide raised concerns about battling the car-service app Uber, saying it could be a tough fight, Mr. de Blasio pushed forward, prompting a public relations fiasco that ended with City Hall’s abruptly dropping a proposal to limit the company’s growth. 

Warned that rising complaints about homelessness could hurt him politically, Mr. de Blasio announced action on the issue this month, appearing reactive to negative headlines. 

And while federal authorities praised the mayor’s handling of the Legionnaires’ outbreak as “swift” and “robust,” the response was still questioned by some city Democrats. Frustrated, the mayor led a marathon weekend meeting with agency leaders, demanding details on their progress. 

In interviews, allies of the mayor said they deeply supported Mr. de Blasio and his efforts to combat inequality. But they expressed worry that his administration had not done enough to ensure New Yorkers recognize his accomplishments. 

“There are a lot of positive programs going in the right direction, and yet, it’s not being perceived because of so many other floundering situations,” Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president and a Democrat, said. “It’s not being presented in a way that people can see it.”

Now, de Blasio has taken his shots at Gov. Cuomo...oh yeah, and President Obama, too.  He definitely has issues making friends higher up, and yes, he's made some bad calls.  But the complaints leveled against him here by the NY Times tells me that he's making the right kind of enemies, too (namely Uber and, well, not to put too fine a point on it, Cuomo.)

We'll see how he can hold up.  I think he can turn this to his advantage if he can show that what he's doing is working.  The problem is there's a lot of New Yorkers invested in making sure that doesn't happen.

Friday News Dump: The Big Kitz-Off

And it's official: Oregon Dem Gov. John Kitzhaber is resigning effective Wednesday, February 18th. His resignation statement is a doozy.

I am announcing today that I will resign as Governor of the State of Oregon.

It is not in my nature to walk away from a job I have undertaken – it is to stand and fight for the cause. For that reason I apologize to all those people who gave of their faith, time, energy and resources to elect me to a fourth term last year and who have supported me over the past three decades. I promise you that I will continue to pursue our shared goals and our common cause in another venue. 

I must also say that it is deeply troubling to me to realize that we have come to a place in the history of this great state of ours where a person can be charged, tried, convicted and sentenced by the media with no due process and no independent verification of the allegations involved. But even more troubling – and on a very personal level as someone who has given 35 years of public service to Oregon – is that so many of my former allies in common cause have been willing to simply accept this judgment at its face value. 

It is something that is hard for me to comprehend – something we might expect in Washington, D.C. but surely not in Oregon. I do not know what it means for our shared future but I do know that it is seriously undermining civic engagement in this state and the quality of the public discourse that once made Oregon stand out from the pack. 

Nonetheless, I understand that I have become a liability to the very institutions and policies to which I have dedicated my career and, indeed, my entire adult life. As a former presiding officer I fully understand the reasons for which I have been asked to resign. I wish Speaker Kotek and President Courtney and their colleagues on both sides of the aisle success in this legislative session and beyond. And I hope that they are truly committed to carrying forward the spirit of bipartisanship and collaboration that has marked the last four years in Oregon.

Oregon's Secretary of State, Democrat Kate Brown, will succeed him in the office (Oregon has no Lt. Governor) and she will be the first bisexual governor in US history, but she's not without her political controversies either.

Brown will have almost two years to govern before facing voters for the right to fill out the rest of Kitzhaber’s term, but Republicans are already critical of her record and stumbles during her first term as secretary of state. She angered Republicans when she scheduled an election for state Labor Commissioner in November 2012, rather than in May. 

Republicans said the decision was an overtly political act aimed at saving the Democratic nominee, Brad Avakian, who won. She fired several employees, including her chief of staff and the head of the state’s elections division, amid the criticism. Most major papers in the state endorsed her Republican opponent in 2012, though she won reelection in a favorable Democratic year. 

Brown also took fire for a letter she sent to the Federal Communications Commission in support of Comcast’s bid to take over Time Warner. The tech Web site The Verge reported that Brown’s letter was drafted by a Comcast lobbyist after the company contributed nearly $10,000 to her secretary of state campaigns. Brown has refused to answer questions about the letter.

We'll see how soon-to-be Governor Brown fares.  Meanwhile, if any political crisis consultants are looking for a new client to take on, I'd start in Salem..

Hillary, Super Frenemy

Expect to see a lot of this over the next few years from Hillary Clinton:

During a forum at the Clinton Global Initiative University, Clinton fielded a question from Vrinda Agrawal, a student at the University of California, Berkeley who asked, "If you don't represent women in politics in America as a future president, who will?"

More than 1,000 students roared with approval and applauded while former President Bill Clinton smiled, whispered into TV host Jimmy Kimmel's ear and clapped along.

The former first lady said she appreciated the sentiment but was still deciding.

"I am very much concerned about the direction of our country and it's not just who runs for office but what they do when they get there and how we bring people together and particularly empower young people so we can tackle these hard decisions," Clinton said.

She worked for the guy in charge of that for four years as Secretary of State, but now she's "very much concerned about the direction of the country" and stuff.

Some quality shade throwing there.  As a professional politician and diplomat, she knows exactly how to walk that line between being an ally of our President (and the people who voted twice for him) and open "I told you so back in 2008" disrespect, running against him.

She's only getting started.  As such, new tag: With Frenemies Like This...