NEW YORK, Oct. 8, 2009 – Just moments after his Democratic opponent staged a boisterous rally on the steps of New York’s City Hall, in opposition to the extension of a term limits law that allows him to seek a third term, a feisty Mayor Michael Bloomberg strode to the podium in the Blue Room and challenged anyone to stop him from continuing to run “what is rightfully mine.”

“Thompson, schmompson. I got this one.” Bloomberg boasted. “We’ve got a month before the election and people are just now finding out who he is. I’ve spent $90 million to saturate the airwaves with advertising and took it out of petty cash.”

When an aide quickly reminded the Mayor that he had officially reported spending $64 million, Bloomberg snorted, “Whatever. I could still give every New Yorker about $10 million apiece and not even feel it. And don’t think most of them wouldn’t be grateful to get it too, since they’re probably unemployed.”

Bloomberg weighed in on a range of reporter questions, most prominently the issue of why he’s seeking a third term. At the rally, Comptroller Thompson alluded to failed attempts at a Presidential or Vice Presidential run, alleging Bloomberg had no where else to go. The Mayor poo-poo’d such thinking and when asked why not return to the business world, responded, “Been there, done that, made a billion. Don’t need to do it again.”

The Mayor turned a bit snippy when questioned about some of the assertions made in his attack ads against Thompson, specifically those suggesting Thompson was an ineffective School Board President. “Yeah? And…?” said Bloomberg. “It’s not like New Yorkers are gonna run out and do research! Repeat a lie often enough and people just believe it. HELLO! I run a media company! Don’t you think I know what I’m doing?”

In a bizarre moment straight out of a reality television series, when reminded that a recent WABC-TV poll now showed Thompson trailing him by the closest margin ever, 8 points, Bloomberg laughed defiantly at the idea enough people would actually turn out on election day to vote him out of office. “Who’s gon’ check me boo?” shouted a wild-eyed Mayor Mike, as he pointed at individual members of the press corps. “You? You? You?” He quickly apologized when he inadvertently aimed his barb at a reporter from the New York Post.

He then turned on his heels to exit the press conference. “This is my city, dammit,” yelled the Boston-born mayor.

The actual Mayor Bloomberg did not contribute to the writing of this article.

Despite the fact that city residents voted for term limits and twice voted down efforts to overturn that law, Bloomberg and certain members of the City Council who stood to directly benefit from a change, connived to enact legislation extending their own right to serve, and that of the mayor, to a third term.

To some, this breach of democracy has made the upcoming election seem like a done deal or perhaps more aptly, a stacked deck. They look at the nearly $100 million of out of pocket campaign financing Bloomberg is spending and assume that no one can possibly stop him. That familiar sense of hopelessness and inner frustration that Americans felt during the eight years George W. Bush spent in the White House, now grips New Yorkers. It is unhappiness mixed with a large dose of ambivalence over what seems to be a near certain outcome.

But New Yorkers have faced adversity before and overcome, and they can again this time too. We’ve got to realize that the power to correct this situation is entirely in our own hands.

Bloomberg is clearly scared of the Thompson challenge, otherwise why would he spend so much money on television ads and glossy brochures mailed to city residents? (I personally shred mine, then put the shreddings in an envelope addressed to his campaign headquarters, without a stamp attached.)

His ads are taking on a particularly nasty tinge, attempting to defend his own questionable record as ultimate authority over the city’s school system by attacking Thompson’s record when he was school board president.

In a touch of irony, the same week Bloomberg unveiled these ads, an independent study by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University shows that NYC public school graduates are woefully unprepared for college. The Bloomberg approach to primary and secondary education is to focus so much on test scores that very little actual learning takes place. This is in contrast the ten point plan laid out last week by Bill Thompson, where he stressed the need for a real educator in charge of the system, smaller class sizes, more accountability and parental involvement.

Educators like the Thompson plan.

So the challenge for voters is to ignore the snowstorm of an expensive advertising campaign and look at the truth. When people ask themselves, “Am I better off now than I was 8 years ago?” their own reality should tell them that 8 years of Bloomberg is enough. Quite enough.

Registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in this city 5-1. If Democrats simply show up and vote for Bill Thompson, there will be real change in the Mayor’s office. But if people stay home and do nothing, we’ll have four more years of a mayor who wants to run this city as his private company, making decisions that affect our lives without ever asking for our input.

Our opponent is apathy. Doing nothing is not acceptable.

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Tuesday, September 29 is the runoff election for New York City Public Advocate and Comptroller. I’ll be voting for Bill de Blasio and John Liu, respectively, and think you should too.

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Up in Albany, where Mayoral challenger Corey Ellis lost the Democratic primary while getting 44 percent of the vote, the campaign may not be over. Ellis has the Working Families Party line and can run again in November. He gave four term incumbent Mayor Jerry Jennings his toughest competition to date, and has sent a fundraising appeal to his supporters to gauge which way to go.

Here in New York City, voters will determine the general election challenger for Mayor, but in this heavily-Democratic city, all but settle the races for Public Advocate, Comptroller, most city council seats and Borough Presidents offices. Manhattan residents also get to decide who will replace District Attorney Robert Morganthau, who is retiring at age 90.

While turnout is not expected to be high, competition for the seats has been fierce, particularly in recent weeks, with television commercials in the Public Advocate race turning particularly nasty.

I have a vested interested in the primary race for Mayor, and give my endorsements to these others who I feel can also best serve New York City.

Endorsements:

Bill Thompson for Mayor
NY Times endorsement

Bill de Blasio for Public Advocate
NY Times endorsement

John Liu for Comptroller
List of endorsements

Richard Aborn for Manhattan District Attorney
List of endorsements

Voter Resources

WNBC Video Voter Guide
NYC Poll Site Locator

Upstate, in Albany, another Democratic stronghold were I lived for 11 years, voters have a chance to pick a new mayor and turn out a 16 year incumbent. City Councilman Corey Ellis who has been backed by the Working Families Party, if elected would become that city’s first African American mayor. He has my support.

Corey Ellis for Mayor of Albany
Metroland endorsement

Voter Resources

Albany County Board of Elections

In a very crowded field of 14 candidates, Woods finished a very respectable fourth, with 8% of the vote. The Democratic winner, California Lt. Governor John Garamendi had 26 percent and will now face a general election challenge from Republican and minor party candidates November 3.

Despite the loss, Woods brought attention to an otherwise unnoteworthy election, because had he won, the Iraq War veteran and Harvard graduate would have been the nation’s first Black openly gay member of Congress. While he has not discussed the possibility of running for future office, he did promise supporters that he would continue to be a voice for the causes in which he believes.

The special election to fill California’s 10th Congressional District seat is September 1, and Democratic candidate Anthony Woods is rallying support for a weekend of get out the vote activities. Woods, who would become the first openly gay Black member of Congress if elected, is one of more than a dozen candidates vying for the seat previously held by Rep. Ellen Tauscher, who has left to take a position in the Obama State Department.

While only registered voters in the district can vote for Woods, he’s soliciting help from where ever he can get it. Anyone in the country can contribute money to the campaign, but he’s also organized virtual phone banks, so supporters across America can call undecided voters in the district and tell them about his campaign.

Ellis, City Councilman from Albany’s Third Ward, has already received the endorsement of the Working Families Party in his quest to unseat four-term incumbent Jerry Jennings. With the PEF support, he can now expect to get a sizeable volunteer army in his get out the vote efforts.

In the Democratic-controlled city, victory in the September primary all but assureds victory in November, but now should Ellis finish just short of a win, he may have sufficient reason, as well as a ballot line, on which to continue the race through to the general election. Today’s endorsement however, makes this race tighter than Jennings expected.

Three thousand miles away, in California’s 10th Congressional District race, the moment of truth comes much sooner for underdog challenger, Anthony Woods. The primary is September 1. However in a crowded field that includes more established, well-known and experienced politicians, Woods picked up an endorsement from the Bay Area Reporter, a gay and lesbian newspaper that has come out in support of this openly gay, African American Iraq War veteran.

…it is more than Woods’s sexual orientation that leads us to recommend him to East Bay voters. Woods would bring a fresh perspective to Congress which has become mired in special interests and hyperbole. One need look no further than the current debate over health care reform; there are not enough progressive Democrats and Republicans are swooping in to kill any effort at real reform.

Finally, New Yorkers who want to vote in the September 15 primary for mayor, public advocate, comptroller, Manhattan DA and a host of city council seats, need to register by Friday, August 21.

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Records are meant to be broken but Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt smashed the Men’s 100-meter mark into little pieces Sunday.

Bolt cruised to the finish of the 100-meter final at the world championships in Berlin, besting the 9.69 mark he set winning gold at last year’s Beijing Olympics by 0.11 seconds, finishing in a time of 9.58 seconds. It was the biggest improvement in the 100-meter record since electronic timing began in 1968.

The race I care most about is the one for New York City Mayor. Democratic challenger Bill Thompson has picked up key endorsements this week, from Congressman Jose Serrano and the city’s largest municipal workers union, District Council 37, who supported incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the last elecction. While reports of a less than stellar fundraising month may have given some people pause, those in the know understand that building the grassroots support is the most vital strategy right now, which will pay off as the campaign moves closer to November.

The billionaire mayor’s money will always buy him more television ads and direct mail brochures. But Thompson has a growing and energized base of real live human supporters, prepared to do the neighborhood leafleting, fundraising and visibility events, and the get out the vote efforts.

Downtown in City Council District 3, Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, incumbent Council Speaker Christine Quinn seeks re-election as a result of her deal with Bloomberg to engineer a City Council vote to extend term limits (against the wishes of the citizens of New York). At a candidates forum this week, she faced sharp criticism from her challengers.

Contenders Maria Passannante-Derr and Yetta Kurland ripped Quinn not just for her role in the term limits vote, but in not forcefully opposing a 2005 Bloomberg-backed lawsuit that successfully appealed a state court decision allowing same-sex marriage.

“This election is about an arrogant incumbent that has sold out our community for a right-wing Republican mayor,” Passannante-Derr charged.

Back upstate, in my old stomping grounds of Albany, Democratic Mayoral challengers, City Councilman Corey Ellis and four-term incumbent Jerry Jennings held competing press conferences this week on the same subject, what to do about the city’s growing number of abandoned and vacant properties, and they articulated two distinctly different approaches.

The Huffington Post this week called the Albany mayor’s race one to watch.

Saturday, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1056 officially backed Thompson, then Wednesday, Staten Island State Senator Diane Savino officially gave her endorsement, which may open doors in that traditionally Republican borough.

Now comes word that District Council 37, representing 120,000 city government workers, will come out in support of Thompson. The union, made up of many office-based workers, like secretaries, accountants and social workers, had supported Mayor Bloomberg in the 2005 election, which was a departure for the traditionally Democratic-leaning organization.

Update: Perhaps the “leader of the Democratic Party in New York State” has made an endorsement afterall?

The long wait is over. Season 6 of Project Runway returns to the television airwaves next Thursday night, August 20 on the Lifetime cable network.

The delay since the end of season 5 was caused at least in part by the decision by show producers to leave its previous cable home on Bravo and switch to Lifetime. A legal battle ensued and the show was on indefinite hold until that was cleared up.

A move across the dial is not the only change. Hosts, supermodel Heidi Klum and Liz Claiborne Chief Creative Officer Tim Gunn, along with judges Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, have left New York’s Parson’s School of Design behind for a move to California. The show now calls FIDM/Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles its new design studio.

Sixteen designers will compete for the Project Runway title and a chance at prizes and increased visibility for their own careers. There are three Black designers among this season’s cast, including 50 year old Epperson (he just goes by a single name) and 42 year old Qristyl Frazer, both from New York, and 31 year old Ra’mon-Lawrence Coleman from Chicago (who does blip the gaydar, but his identity hasn’t been official established yet).

Also new this year is a behind the scenes look at what the Project Runway models experience. Models of the Runway will be a companion program where 16 women vie to be paired with the winning designer of “Project Runway” for a $25,000 cash prize from L’Oreal Skin Genesis and a fashion spread in Marie Claire magazine.

The entire evening will begin however with a look back at some of our favorite Project Runway contestants from the first five seasons. Project Runway: All-Star Challenge pits eight of our favorite designers from past seasons, all of whom made it to Fashion Week during their seasons, with one even winning the whole show. The winning designer will take home a $100,000 cash prize.