When the mayor, through the agency of the City Council, did away with term limits, the Working Families Party and a good government coalition led the opposition, calling term limits extension a "power grab, plain and simple".The party circulated petitions opposing the mayor's bill and posted his own damning term limits quote -- "I think it would be an absolute disgrace to go around the public will" -- on their masthead.
What a difference 10 months makes. The rancor over term limits had apparently been forgotten last week at the Hotel Trades Council on West 44th Street, where the party gathered for a candidate forum.
Bloomberg faced the same list of canned questions as rival candidates Comptroller William Thompson and Queens Council member Tony Avella, the only non-scripted items coming from the party's co-chairperson and its chief.
Bloomberg punted on "green" jobs and extending paid sick days, passed on extending prevailing wages to all city projects, called schools chancellor Joel Klein "the right guy" for the job, opposed federal housing vouchers to the homeless, saw no harm in putting charter schools into public school buildings, opposed city rent regulation reform, rejected raising taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers, and countered campaign finance reform questions by asserting that he had "made every dime" he had and that elections could never be totally fair.
One party member, citing Bloomberg's "arrogance", said she'd quit the party if it endorsed him.
Bill Thompson got a positive response when he told the members that the Working Families line "means something....principles...core beliefs" he felt he represented.
So, will the high-minded WFP join the Republicans in the Bloomberg pimpwagon?
Party leaders say the only question is whether they'll endorse William Thompson or leave the party's ballot line blank, as when Democrat Freddy Ferrer ran against Bloomberg in 2005.
But Bloomberg's friends have been dropping major contributions on the WFP, and some union-affiliated members say that Bloomberg will get the party's endorsement.
The Tom Robbins Running Scared post from the Village Voice.
