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| נשלח ב-9/9/2005 20:14 |
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ווייס321. מ'דארף טאקע אנשרייען פריץ בלומבערג פאר די טעקס הייקס און טיקעט בליצן. אבער נישט אונז אידן. מיר זענען אין גלות און מיר האבן א צווי פון "הצפינו עצמכם".
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| נשלח ב-9/9/2005 23:06 |
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Meanwhile, Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg made an evening appearance in Borough Park, where he campaigned for Orthodox Jewish votes and opened a new campaign office on 13th Avenue.
4 Countdown: Days left until primary
newsday
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| נשלח ב-9/9/2005 23:07 |
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New York Daily News
Mike's Indy Party pain, gain
By DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
Friday, September 9th, 2005
Mayor Bloomberg called on Independence Party leader Lenora Fulani yesterday to renounce past comments of hers that have been viewed as anti-Semitic - even as the mayor refused to renounce her ballot line.
Fulani said in 1995 that Jews are "mass murderers of people of color" - comments she declined to disavow as recently as Wednesday, when she came to City Hall to tout her party's support of Bloomberg.
"I think ... she should have renounced anti-Semitism yesterday," the mayor told reporters. "She had a great opportunity to do that."
Fulani evaded the issue yesterday and released a statement saying, "With due respect to the mayor, this election is not about Mike Bloomberg or Lenora Fulani. It's about the people of this city."
Bloomberg personally gave Fulani's party $250,000 last year - the party's biggest single donation ever.
In May, the party gave Bloomberg its ballot line - offering Democrats a way to vote for a Republican without pulling the GOP lever. In the 2001 election, for example, Bloomberg won 59,000 votes on the Independence Party line; he beat Mark Green by 41,770 votes.
The timing of the dustup was unfortunate for Bloomberg, whose campaign chose yesterday to open a new office in Borough Park dedicated to wooing the 80,000 or so Orthodox Jews in all five of the city's boroughs.
The new office boasted kosher cookies, campaign literature in Yiddish and some 5,000 balloons imprinted with the words, "Mike is a Mensch."
Democratic City Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn), who will head up Orthodox outreach for the Republican mayor, praised Bloomberg's efforts to heal the city's racial wounds and boost security.
But he also expressed concern about Bloomberg's alliance with Fulani, saying, "I think there are people - including myself - that are not happy about that. ... But the mayor has made it clear that he detests what she has said."
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| נשלח ב-13/9/2005 07:58 |
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I like Mike - and
Weiner in '09
I'm voting for Anthony Weiner for mayor.
Four years from now.
When Rudy Giuliani ran for reelection I put on dark glasses, held my nose and for the first time in my life voted for a Republican. For here was a guy, for all his glaring faults, who had managed to turn the helm of civilization back on course in a great city spinning murderously out of control.
I voted for Giuliani because he had had the good sense to hire William Bratton as his police commissioner, who, in turn, hired a brilliant Brooklyn transit cop named Jack Maple as his first deputy commissioner.
Maple was the architect of the Compstat system that cut crime by half in two years by actually holding precinct commanders responsible for the crime rates in their precincts, which compelled them to let the cops go out and do their jobs.
Once cops were allowed to work, so did the city.
The city needed a lion tamer, and Rudy Giuliani was the guy with the whip.
For this reason alone, I crossed party lines.
Near the end of the second term - before he was rehabilitated by 9/11, which he has since ghoulishly exploited for financial and political profit - when he got swallowed by his own ego, and strained race relations to the flash point in this city, I regretted my vote.
But that's a different column.
I did not vote for Mike Bloomberg four years ago. I thought his first year was awful, a grab bag of tax increases, CUNY tuition hikes, license fee increases, ticket blitzes, a bullying smoking ban, a double standard for working guys drinking beer at Rockaway and yuppies sipping wine on the lawn of Central Park. Outer-borough people nicknamed him Mayor Taxberg.
I thought he'd be a one-term mayor.
But I soon came to like Mike. In his own flinty, corporate way he brought this city back from 9/11 more rapidly than I thought possible.
He made a true effort to effect change in the public schools. The garbage is collected. And Raymond Kelly, our excellent police commissioner, drove crime down to numbers reflecting the early 1960s.
Unless he does something amazingly awful in the next two months, I'll leave the shades home when I vote for Bloomberg's reelection.
The only other thing that could change my mind is the Democratic candidate.
Today I intend to vote for Anthony Weiner, from Brooklyn, in the Democratic primary. I had my problems with Weiner in the past. I nicknamed him Weiner the Whiner in this space because I thought he was more talk than action. He was such a protégé of Chuck Schumer that people joked he resembled Schumer's bar mitzvah picture.
But as a congressman, Weiner's become his own man. He's been a loud and dogged breadwinner for the city. And I like that he's thisclose to Schumer, who has become a powerful and effective U.S. senator. Working together in D.C., they deliver a tough one-two punch for New York City.
Weiner would make a very good mayor. He's clearly the smartest, most articulate, most visionary and gutsiest candidate in this Democratic field. He also works his buns off.
Everywhere I go I run into this guy. In February I ran into him in Gargiulo's restaurant in Coney Island at a party for the members of the Seagate Beach Club. I ran into him at a dedication of an Order of the Purple Heart monument in Fort Hamilton last month. I ate lunch with him in Il Vesuvio trattoria on Bell Blvd. back at the start of the campaign. He was street-smart, exploding with ideas, and a good listener.
One hesitation of voting for him for mayor is that New York City would lose a loud and effective voice in Washington. The reason this city never gets its fair share of dough from Washington is because our congressional delegation is always looking to bolt to run for mayor back home.
When they do we lose crucial seniority on the powerful committees where the back-room horse trading for pork happens.
Congressmen like Weiner are the earners. Mayors spend the bread.
So, right now Weiner can probably do our city more good in Washington than in City Hall. But if he forces a runoff with Freddy Ferrer and wins the Democratic primary, I'll be torn between Bloomberg and Weiner.
I think four more years of Bloomberg as mayor and Weiner in Congress would serve the city best.
So today I'm voting for Weiner in the Democratic primary because he's hands down the best in the field.
Maybe he'll change the minds of fence-sitters like me in the next two months.
But right now I'm planning to vote for Weiner in the general election for mayor.
In 2009.
Originally published on September 12, 2005
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| נשלח ב-13/9/2005 11:39 |
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Bloomberg a grab bag of tax increases, CUNY tuition hikes, license fee increases, ticket blitzes, a bullying smoking ban, a double standard for working guys drinking beer at Rockaway and yuppies sipping wine on the lawn of Central Park. Outer-borough people nicknamed him Mayor Taxberg.
תוקן על ידי - Mench - 13/09/2005 11:40:39
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