Bloomberg Called Ready to Announce Third-Term Bid (despite two-term limit)

[Newsjock]

Source: New York Times

After months of speculation about his political future, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to announce on Thursday morning that he will seek a third term as mayor, according to three people who have been told of his plans.

The extraordinary move promises to upend New York City’s political world.

Right now, Mr. Bloomberg is barred by law from seeking re-election. But he will propose trying to revise the city’s 15-year-old term limits law, which would otherwise force him and dozens of other elected leaders out of office in 2009, the three people said.

In his announcement, Mr. Bloomberg, a former Wall Street trader and founder of a billion-dollar financial data firm, is expected to argue that the financial crisis unfolding in New York City demands his steady hand and proven business acumen.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/nyregion/01bloomberg.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[phusion]

1. WTF

get out of office you prick! n/t

[Bake]

24. If the people of NYC want him out, there's a simple way to do it.

Vote him out. Term limits came from the Repubs, who could NEVER beat FDR and didn't want a repeat.

Bake

[lurky]

2. Mayor-for-life?

I guess Bloomberg wants to be mayor-for-life. By the way, the people have voted against extending term limits twice in the last few years, but he is going to do it anyway.

Personally, I am sick-to-death of his pro-business, pro-Wall-Street, give-the-developers-whatever-they-want, privatize-everything philosophy.

[apnu]

14. Hey, we got one of those over here in Chicago!

Whee! Daley! We love him and hate him.

[Lefta Dissenter]

3. shit

...now bush is going to propose the same thing...

[lurky]

4. Luckily, Boosh needs to amend the constitution to get a 3rd term.

(If he wants to pretend to be legal, anyway).

Bloomberg only has to arm-twist enough members of the city council.

[nradisic]

5. Guliani tried the same shit....

Right after 9/11 Guliani tried and failed to do the same....Not happening. NYC Council is vastly Democrats.

[WriteDown]

9. Not a pupular opinion on DU...

but i would have loved a third term for Giuliani. An amazing mayor, at least to this formed NYer.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

6. Meh...What does he care about the Constitution?

He'll find some loophole or other.

[dchill]

32. Right, and then he'd have to figure out...

how to steal an election with a 20% approval rating.

[Xithras]

11. Years ago, there were plenty here on DU who would have supported it.

Lot's of people liked the idea of a third Clinton term, once upon a time. The intervening Bush years have shown us the wisdom of that two term limit.

Of course, as someone once asked me: What if FDR, one of the greatest Democrats of the 20th century, had been limited to two terms? Truman would have been president when the Japanese hit Hawaii, and the world would be a different place.

[Smarmie Doofus]

15. Not Truman. Henry Wallace.

>>>>Truman would have been president when the Japanese hit Hawaii, and the world would be a different place. >>>>

FDR's VEEP at Pearl Harbor. Heavy favorite for DEM nod if FDR didn't run in '40.

Truman was dug up at the '44 convention by the dixiecrats and RW dems from up north to keep Jim Crow in place and to wratched-up the cold war.

This he did with relish.

[Jim Sagle]

19. 'to keep Jim Crow in place'? Hogwash!

He did the opposite.

[Smarmie Doofus]

23. Much later, Truman changed and supported civil rights in the Fed Gov't

But he never opposed "Jim Crow" ; laws ( laws in the states that restricted and segregated AAs) as that term is commonly understood.




http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_truman.html


>>>By 1947, as the Cold War with the Soviet Union intensified and the nation was becoming increasingly anti-Communist and intolerant, Harry Truman astonished everyone by suddenly supporting civil rights.>>>>>

note: "astonished" and "suddenly"

>>>>> Truman had been outraged at the murder and assaults on dozens of black veterans of World War II. Although he once held strong racial biases -- he had used the word "nigger" freely in his speech -- >>>>>>

Note also: " strong racial biases" and "used the word 'nigger' freely in his speech."


>>>>>in 1947 he decided to make civil rights a national issue. He authorized a fifteen-man committee on Civil Rights to recommend new legislation to protect people from discrimination. Speaking from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Truman became the first president of the United States to address the NAACP. He promised African Americans that the federal government would act now to end discrimination, violence, and race prejudice in American life. Shortly afterward, his panel issued its report confirming that segregation, lynching, and discrimination at the polls had to be ended.
In the election year of 1948, Truman continued to push for civil rights, partially because he felt that it was the right thing to do, and partially because he knew that he had to win the black vote in order to be elected.>>>>

I'd sum this up by saying... I believe fairly... that Truman changed his politics on segregation in the face of a difficult reelection looming as '48 drew closer. Mollifying the Wallace wing of the party ( Wallace had ALWAYS advocated full and equal rights for AAs and this created a real wedge for him and the dixiecrats at both the 40 and 44 conventions.) and keeping them in the tent being the obvious goal there.

Beyond the above, I can find no evidence of Truman.. either the original Truman ( '40 and '44 about whom I posted) or the cleaned-up version of 1947 , angling for reelection... explicitly advocating the dismantling of Jim Crow laws in states where they existed.

Correct me if I'm mistaken.

[Jim Sagle]

25. Your history comes nowhere NEAR to supporting a claim that Truman was selected to

"keep Jim Crow in place."

The Dems had a choice between an American and a red. They made the right choice.

[Smarmie Doofus]

30. Wallace was a communist? Was FDR aware of this?

Supporting evidence , please.

You should read more about the '44 convention. The ( white, segregated leadership of )south wanted Byrnes ( James F) but settled for Truman 'cause the the White House palace guard wanted a relative tabula rasa who was nonetheless compatible with southern ummm.... *sensibilities*.

The alternative was the integrationist Wallace. Who nearly won anyway.... and would certainly have squashed Byrnes.

[happyslug]

21. Those big city Politicians that ran the 1944 Convention were "Right Wing"?

You would have fooled them, most only grab controlled of their cities in the early 1930s do to the failure of the GOP to help the cities. Most cities prior to the 1930s were Republican Controlled (New York City was one of the few exceptions, but it went in and out for decades between the GOP and the Democratic Parties). One of the reason the Democratic Party supported Prohibition was the local bars in the cities were tools of how the GOP controlled those cities. The Lost of the Bars cost the GOP control of the Cities (Except where Speakeasies were permitted, but lost of the support of the Speakeasies owners cost the GOP control of the Inner Cities).

Wallace's big problem, as far as the Democratic Big City bosses of the late 1940s were concerned, was his opposition to their control of the various urban programs the Democrats had implemented during the 1930s and 1940s. When Prohibition was repealed most states and cities imposes rules and restrictions on saloons (Including closing them down on election day). With thee new restrictions it was hard to use them as a political base (Most bars stayed active politically but unlike the earlies time period not much of a factor). Given the other source of local political funding was NOT yet in place (Suburban sprawl, and even it was out of the hands of most inner city Democrats) the big city political bosses depended on their control of various New Deal programs for support in elections. Wallace refused to co-operate with them as to thee programs, refusing to see that the big city bosses needed these programs to stay in power AND PREVENT THE GOP FROM TAKING BACK THE CITIES (Most of which had been GOP controlled only 20 years before). Thus from the big city political bosses point of view, Wallace had to go. Wallace could not and would no see or deal with the problems the big city bosses were facing. Truman, being a product of a big city system (The Kansas City big city machine, Kansas City being a "Southern" city and thus Democratic even in the 1920s) knew the problems and had worked with the big city bosses.

My point is simple, it was NOT racism nor the Cold War that cause Truman to be picked in 1944, but the big city bosses wanted someone who they could work with. The Big City Bosses believed they could NOT work with Wallace, but could work with Truman, thus Truman was made the VP, with full expectation that FDR would die in office and he would be President.

The same Big City Bosses forces Lyndon Johnson down JFK's throat in the 1960 Convention, the big city bosses could NOT prevent JFK from getting the nomination, but they wanted someone in JFK's administration they could work with, and that was Johnson (The same big city bosses became some of LBJ's greatest supporters for his war on property programs).

Wallace had four years to show the big city bosses he understood they problems and would work with them, instead he went on his own agenda. Instead of building a coalition he wanted to build a movement. The problem is a coalition has the strength of all of its members, while a movement only has the strength of the people in favor of that movement. Coalitions greatest weakness is that it is made up of various groups, each with differer agendas, while a movement has only one agenda. A movement's greatest weakness is most people will NOT join it except under very unusual circumstances (Thus the Democratic Party is a Coalition not a movement, movements tend to be outside BOTH parities, but often become part of the Coalition of one of the Parties, in Wallace's case the Democratic Party). In 1944 the Coalition that made up the Democratic Party came into conflict with Wallace's movement, and the Coalition won out (And Coalitions do most of the time when such conflicts occur). Wallace's movement had the problem that Wallace (And this is the problem with most movements) was unable to work with other members of the Democratic Coalition. In such a fight the Coalition almost always win, and that is why Wallace lost out to Truman in the 1944 Convention (and later would lose out to Truman in the 1948 Election).

The issue was could Wallace work with other members of the Democratic Coalition and in 1944 the other members of the Coalition said NO. This was repeated in 1948. The real problem was no one wanted to compromise nor did the Wallace wing of the Party want to work with the Inner City Bosses. Until those two sides could work together (And that took another 40 years and LBJ's Great Society Program) the Wallace wing of the Party was going no where, and that is why Truman replaced Wallace as FDR's VP, the Big City Bosses knew they would work with Truman, and also knew they could NOT work with Wallace.

[Zynx]

26. Fine. He'll lose every state.

[dchill]

31. Now THAT'S going to keep me up all night!

Gee, thanks. :hi:

[aquart]

7. Man just can't figure out what to do with himself.

[lurky]

8. I have a couple suggestions.

:evilgrin:

[Mudoria]

10. If the people of NYC are willing to vote for him

then what is the problem? Quite a large segment of DU applauds if Chavez or one his friends wants to change the law so they can run for office continually. I don't see the difference...

[harmonicon]

18. "democratically change"

That's the difference. A lot of why people, like myself, admire Hugo Chavez, is because he is dedicated to the democratic process, no matter the outcome. I have nothing but respect for him, even when he held a national referendum in which every citizen could vote to end term limits. That same referendum also contained other proposals, such as guaranteeing equal rights for homosexuals.

[Renew Deal]

12. Crisis demands Bloomy? He didn't think so with Giuliani.

I don't have a big problem with changing the term limit law, but it should take affect after he leaves office.

[nyc 4 Biden]

13. I personally like the job Bloomberg has done.

IMO he will win a third term in a landslide.

[Jersey Devil]

16. Good luck to him with the strongly Democratic City Council

Rudy wanted to do the same thing and they told him "Thanks but no thanks", just like Sarah said about the bridge to nowhere.

[NYC Liberal]

28. Except it's all bullshit, because Bloomberg is supporting a bill

to get rid of term limits for city council members too.

They scratch his back, he scratches theres.

Ugh.

[KittyWampus]

17. Chavez did something like this. DU'ers overwhelmingly supported him. After all, if NY'ers voteoo

to allow it, what's the rub?

[Phoonzang]

20. Hey! There's already a Duke of New York!

[qanda]

22. Didn't Giuliani propose something similiar after 911?

And there was such a backlash that he just went away quietly.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

27. Typical Republican

Yes, yes, I know he's now an Independent but he was elected as a Democrat-turned-Republican.

If the rules don't suit you, make your own rules and ignore the legality of the ones in place.

[NYC Liberal]

29. Basically, Bloomberg is supporting a bill to get the city council's term limits lifted too

They're scratching each other's backs and unfortunately I think it'll work.

Bloomberg isn't horrible, but he's an opportunist and he's only interested in doing what will put him in the limelight. There's no Senate seat to run for, and to be honest, Mayor of NYC is a higher profile job than Governor of NY (look at the attention Bloomberg's gotten vs. Paterson).

Oh and the Times loves Bloomberg too.

[LBJDemocrat]

33. Yes; we NEED Bloomberg!

We just couldn't survive without this brave, independent politician.

Fucking oligarch scum.