Sunday, November 13, 2005
Back In Black
My Sunday Post column analyzes how a surprising level of African-American support helped return a Republican mayor to office in heavily Democratic New York.
UPDATE: A few follow-up observations on Bloomberg and minority voters.
1) Even though I had already voted for him last week, doing the reporting on this piece made me appreciate Bloomberg a lot more. Indeed, it made me appreciate a comment made by PACE University polling director Jonathan Trichter that I wasn't able to include because of space: "This is a mayor that nobody hates — a singular characteristic among modern New York City mayors. They may disagree [with him] on certain issues, but there is no visceral knee-jerk venom against this guy."
2) Given all the abuse that Democratic candidate Freddy Ferrer got for running a poor campaign, would any of his primary foes have done much better? Bloomberg got a third of the Latino vote -- against a Latino candidate. He would inarguably have done much better against Anthony Weiner, Gifford Miller or C. Virginia Fields. Would Weiner and Miller have done better with white voters? Debateable. Would Fields -- an African American woman have done better with black or female voters? Perhaps. But would that be offset with more gains for Bloomberg with white or Latinos? In short, any Democrat would have had a huge problem.
3) With the notable exception of expanding minority and gender set-asides in contracting, is there much in the Bloomberg approach that other Republicans couldn't emulate in building relationships with black and Latino voters?
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UPDATE: A few follow-up observations on Bloomberg and minority voters.
1) Even though I had already voted for him last week, doing the reporting on this piece made me appreciate Bloomberg a lot more. Indeed, it made me appreciate a comment made by PACE University polling director Jonathan Trichter that I wasn't able to include because of space: "This is a mayor that nobody hates — a singular characteristic among modern New York City mayors. They may disagree [with him] on certain issues, but there is no visceral knee-jerk venom against this guy."
2) Given all the abuse that Democratic candidate Freddy Ferrer got for running a poor campaign, would any of his primary foes have done much better? Bloomberg got a third of the Latino vote -- against a Latino candidate. He would inarguably have done much better against Anthony Weiner, Gifford Miller or C. Virginia Fields. Would Weiner and Miller have done better with white voters? Debateable. Would Fields -- an African American woman have done better with black or female voters? Perhaps. But would that be offset with more gains for Bloomberg with white or Latinos? In short, any Democrat would have had a huge problem.
3) With the notable exception of expanding minority and gender set-asides in contracting, is there much in the Bloomberg approach that other Republicans couldn't emulate in building relationships with black and Latino voters?
