“I was 40 years old. I had a life... I didn’t want to do that."

If you think Bill de Blasio was a popular candidate, or has been well received so far, you don't live in NYC. There is a reason the tabloids have been piling on him continually since the honeymoon (which didn't last very long) ended.

He got into office with a giant yawn, and has been facing more criticism than love since coming in.

He won the Democratic primary by not being as gross as Christine Quinn and Anthony Weiner, or as boring as Bill Thompson. Only 20 percent of those voters turned up for the primary -- which effectively decided the election -- because of the uninspiring choices.

Then he ran pretty much unopposed in the general election. 16 percent of the population voted for de Blasio.http://open.salon.com/blog/libbyliberalnyc/2013/11/08/dem_mayor_de_blasios_landslide_16_nyers_meh

SOMEBODY likes him. But he didn't win on anything near a tidal wave of enthusiasm. You could have put a popsicle stick with all the PAC funding de Blasio had into that election and it would have won by a landslide.

 

New York has one political party. Unless you get an extraordinary candidate from outside of that political machine, every election is won at the primary level, including mayoral.

There are 3.2 million registered Democrats in the city. 510,000 Republicans. Most independents lean Democratic in NYC.

Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani ran as Republicans. Which demonstrates either how inept the Democrats were in not being able to put up good candidates in a place where they start out with that huge advantage, or how extraordinary Giuliani and Bloomberg were. ... or a combination of the two.

The fact that Bloomberg had such a close race against Mark Green and Rudy Giuliani barely won against Ruth Messinger, demonstrates that even weak candidates on the democratic ticket in New York start with a huge leg up.

This time around, there was no Giuliani or Bloomberg (who did it by spending ridiculous amounts of his own money) Joe Lhota wasn't a real candidate. He got on the ballot in a primary in which only 32,000 people voted for him.

de Blasio won the election at the primary level. He didn't win in a lovefest. The small turnout of democrats that showed up were holding their noses to vote. You had Christine Quinn who was so disliked that even her name recognition couldn't get her the nomination. Anthony Weiner, who was, well Anthony Weiner. And Bill Thompson, who was weak and had already blown it by losing to Bloomberg. That primary was record low turnout and it took two rounds of voting. It wasn't because of the inevitability of Bill de Blasio, or how much everyone loved him. It was because nobody was inspired by him -- or ANY of their choices.