Bill De Blasio

I thought the spigot was turned off, but another drip came out of the pipeline of Democratic candidates for president. Bill De Blasio, mayor of New York City, is probably the most quixotic of all the major candidates (I don't include Marianne Williamson or the mayor of the small town in Florida whose name escapes me).

De Blasio has announced just a few weeks before the debate, and it's hard to imagine he will get the 65,000 distinct donors or one percent in the polls to make it. His announcement did not bring crickets, like Michael Bennet, Seth Moulton, Tim Ryan, of Eric Swalwell, but instead raspberries, even from the likes of Whoopi Goldberg. In this day and age, the mayor of New York seems the last place a presidential candidate would stem from, except maybe the mayor of San Francisco (Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti seems to be wisely sitting this one out). Even Michael Bloomberg, who has an ego bigger than he is, demurred.

De Blasio's candidacy has not gendered much excitement. I just went to the web sites for New York Magazine, The New Yorker, and the New York Daily News, all left leaning, and none had feature articles on his announcement (other than a teenage blogger who scooped him). His approval rating in NYC is in the gutter, and 76 percent of New Yorkers say he shouldn't run. He appears to have the most resistance of any of the many candidates. Not only is there no groundswell for him, there is active disdain. Of course I would vote for him over Trump, but he does not engender any hope from me.

De Blasio's angle is that he's for the working people, which of course every single one of the other candidates are also for (I don't recall any of them running for the one percent). Though he brings some interesting things to the table--he is married to a black woman--he is seen as just another white guy, although he is the tallest. Prediction: he'll be gone well before the Iowa caucus.