Bronx Political Chatter is a no holds-barred, irreverent look at politics in the Bronx. Bronxites have long lacked an independent forum to express our views about local politics and politicians. Bronx Political Chatter is a place for you to openly express your views, ideas, criticisms and suggestions, and to make our elected officials more accountable for the decisions they make. So this is your turn to be heard.
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It has been around forever
Monday, November 19, 2012
Carrion Bucks Party For Mayoral Run
As any politicial junkie has heard already, former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion has quit the Democratic Party in order to mount a race for Mayor and try to capture the Republican nomination. The NY Times reported that Carrion was meeting with Republican leaders to try to lock up their nomination. Let's hear what you have to say about this development.
I remember Adolfo Carrión, Jr. back when he was the district manager at CB5, and then I voted for him to become city councilman for the 14th District. That was when he had his office on East Fordham Road. And of course I voted for him to be Bronx Borough President. He did good in that post and had a strong record on industrial redevelopment such as the fish and produce markets. But that was a long time ago. Now it seems like forever since I have seen him around the neighborhood.
What I mean to say is that I am disappointed that he only appears when he is asking for our votes. I guess that is how all politicians are. But if you ask me whether I prefer the old Adolfo or the new one, I would vote for the old Adolfo any day.
As for the mayor's race, it really depends on who he is running against. He is certainly a better choice than the dull same-old, same-olds who seem likely to run in the Democratic primary. If no superstar appears, then I would end up voting for Carrión.
Carrion will need the Republican leaders because although a $1 million campaign war chest sounds like a lot of money, it is only a drop in the bucket when you plan to take on the Democratic Party machine.
You can take the candidate out of the Bronx Democratic machine — but can you take the machine out of the candidate?
That’s my warning to those who might support former Bronx Borough President and White House urban czar Adolfo Carrión Jr. for mayor in the 2013 race.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, voters want a mayor who will focus not only on holding down crime and fixing our public schools but also on re-engineering our physical city.
And into the breach steps Carrión to offer his expertise. His emergence as newly “disenrolled” Democrat threatens to turn the mayoral contest into “The Hunger Games.”
A former pastor, an urban planner by training, a politician by design and a liberal by inclination, Carrión says he’ll “soon” make up his mind on a mayoral run, presumably as a Republican-Independence “fusion” candidate — an alternative to the liberal “machine” Democrats.
But is he?
Adolfo has formidable political skills, a keen mind and Phil Donahue-like affability.
I’ve known him a long time: I managed his successful 1997 bid for a City Council seat, then worked as his legislative director for two years.
His spokesman extols Carrión as an alternative to the special interests as well as someone who can focus on rebuilding and reuniting all five boroughs.
But he has a long road ahead of him as he seeks to convince Republican and Independence Party leaders that an ex-aide to President Obama can be a centrist candidate for mayor of New York.
His path to victory still requires assembling a broad coalition of interest groups, political machines and ethnic communities. His Spanish surname, nice résumé and toothy grin don’t immediately qualify him.
Will a new “suit” separate him from the pack?
His actual planning experience was limited to stints in the Department of City Planning and as district manager at Bronx Community Board 5.
And the $1.1 million in his campaign war chest pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions and successful signature business that Michael Bloomberg brought along when he ran as a “fusion” candidate back in 2001.
To succeed, Carrión would have to present the most sensible and feasible plan for modernizing our infrastructure, rezoning flood-prone areas and rebuilding where necessary.
Carrión expects developers, general contractors and construction trade unions to gravitate toward him because he supported many large projects in The Bronx.
But is Adolfo the right person to say, “Grifters and grafters need not apply”? While he was in public office, his campaign coffers werereplete with special-interest contributionsfrom PACs, landlords, developers and municipal unions. (In fact, unproved “play-to-pay” allegations arose during his vetting for his White House post.)
For years now, The Bronx has seemed to produce more federal inmates than successful candidates for higher elected office. Political scientist Mitchell Moss has dubbed the borough “a political graveyard” for those with citywide ambitions because its leaders have little experience working across ethnic and class divides.
Many of Adolfo’s past supporters are disappointed that his early political promise did not yield a real legislative record during his time on the City Council or signature accomplishments as borough president.
By all accounts, his tenure as the urban planning czar in the White House and as HUD regional director was unremarkable.
If local Republican leaders buy Carrión’s latest “road to Damascus” transformation, they deserve to be cast into the political wilderness for the next 40 years.
According the polling in the following article, Adolfo Carrion would get crushed if he ran for mayor:
Wall Street Journal, November 21, 2012
POLL: LHOTA WOULD LOSE TO A DEMOCRAT IN MAYORAL RACE
By Michael Howard Saul
If Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota runs for New York City mayor on the GOP line next year, he would lose to an unnamed Democrat 60% to 9%, a poll released Wednesday showed.
Lhota has been much discussed as a potential mayoral candidate after receiving high praise for the MTA’s handling of superstorm Sandy. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that former Mayor Rudy Giuliani believes Lhota, who worked for Giuliani at City Hall, would be a “fantastic” mayor and would do anything to help him win.
Another potential contender for the GOP nomination, Adolfo Carrion, would also get crushed in a hypothetical general election, the survey from the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute showed. If Carrion runs on the GOP line, he also loses 62% to 11%.
Carrion, a former Bronx borough president and a former member of President Barack Obama’s administration, recently left the Democratic Party and became unaffiliated. He would need a special waiver from three of the city’s five GOP chairmen to run on the Republican line.
In New York City, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a six-to-one margin, but the GOP nominee for mayor has won the last five elections. The last Democrat to win City Hall, former Mayor David Dinkins, was elected in 1989.
In 2001, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg first ran for City Hall, he was 40% behind in the polls. Bloomberg, a billionaire, bankrolled his own campaign and vastly outspent his Democratic challenger ...
"Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration. Those with narcissistic personality disorder believe that they're superior to others and have little regard for other people's feelings. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism." -from Mayo Clinic
Liu? DeBlasio? Thompson? "“If the public wants bad government, the public has a right to bad government,” indeed, Mayor Mike. Those three are so arrogant and corrupt, they refused to pay the thousands of dollars they were fined via intentional "illegal posterizing" (ie, festooning every city lamp post with huge cardboard signs with their ugly mugs on them). If these stooges are stinky and tricky enough to try dodging simple fines anyone else has to pay, don't expect them to provide moral leadership. All three of them are political hacks. PS, if Mike prefers Ms. Clinton to Ms. Quinn, add Quinn to the "not going to fly" zone, too.
As he prepares to run for New York City mayor, Adolfo Carrión's short tenure in the White House represents both a key element of his résumé and a potential political liability. Mr. Carrión, who has left the Democratic Party and is seeking the Republican and Independence lines for mayor, has already begun to face questions from GOP officials about why he left a post as director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs in May 2010 after just 14 months. He moved to a midlevel position in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, from which he stepped down in early 2012. Mr. Carrión's departure drew attention because it coincided with a highly publicized city Conflicts of Interest Board investigation into his personal employment of an architect who had business before Mr. Carrión when he was Bronx borough president. After initially saying everything he did was proper, Mr. Carrión admitted in 2011 to breaking the conflict-of-interest law and paid a $10,000 civil fine. Staten Island GOP chairman Robert Scamardella asked Mr. Carrión about why he left the White House recently. He said Mr. Carrión told him there was nothing about it that could negatively affect his candidacy, but Mr. Scamardella told The Wall Street Journal that the circumstances should be "probed a little bit more." In his first extended interview about his time in Washington, Mr. Carrión said Thursday that he left the White House for family reasons: The HUD job was in New York, and he had fulfilled his promise to President Barack Obama to work for one year. "I stayed longer than I promised. I had to get back home, to New York, which I was very glad to do, and, obviously, my family was very happy to come back, as well," Mr. Carrión said. According to two people familiar with the matter, White House officials were concerned about his ability to manage relationships with senior administration officials, including Mr. Obama's senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. She and other officials also believed he was using the office to further his career, the people said. One person familiar with the matter said the White House also eventually became concerned that Mr. Carrión hadn't been forthright with White House officials about some details about the Conflicts of Interest Board investigation. Mr. Carrión disputed the notion that he clashed excessively with Ms. Jarrett and others, though he acknowledged they had "disagreements on ..../
I remember Adolfo Carrión, Jr. back when he was the district manager at CB5, and then I voted for him to become city councilman for the 14th District. That was when he had his office on East Fordham Road. And of course I voted for him to be Bronx Borough President. He did good in that post and had a strong record on industrial redevelopment such as the fish and produce markets. But that was a long time ago. Now it seems like forever since I have seen him around the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean to say is that I am disappointed that he only appears when he is asking for our votes. I guess that is how all politicians are. But if you ask me whether I prefer the old Adolfo or the new one, I would vote for the old Adolfo any day.
As for the mayor's race, it really depends on who he is running against. He is certainly a better choice than the dull same-old, same-olds who seem likely to run in the Democratic primary. If no superstar appears, then I would end up voting for Carrión.
he is just a fair-weather democrat
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with Mr. Carrion ditching the Dems. After all, New Yorkers have preferred non-Dem mayors for the past 20 years.
ReplyDeleteI'll second that!!
DeleteYeah right zzz
ReplyDeleteIf you're not going to take a moment to think it through, please don't comment.
DeleteAs one of the former Borough President's hirelings, don't you have to endorse him Tony?
ReplyDeleteI wish there was a magical way that we could give Bloomberg a 4th term.
ReplyDeleteIf you didn't remind us who he was, I'd have a hard time placing the name.
ReplyDeleteI don't like Quinn, Liu, Thompson, DeBalsio or Carrion.
DeleteDidn't Adolfo Carrion endorse Adriano Espaillat for Congress?
ReplyDeleteCarrion will need the Republican leaders because although a $1 million campaign war chest sounds like a lot of money, it is only a drop in the bucket when you plan to take on the Democratic Party machine.
ReplyDeleteLook at this from today's NY Post:
ReplyDeleteNew York Post, Nov. 20, 2012
Carrión’s new suit
By MICHAEL BENJAMIN
You can take the candidate out of the Bronx Democratic machine — but can you take the machine out of the candidate?
That’s my warning to those who might support former Bronx Borough President and White House urban czar Adolfo Carrión Jr. for mayor in the 2013 race.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, voters want a mayor who will focus not only on holding down crime and fixing our public schools but also on re-engineering our physical city.
And into the breach steps Carrión to offer his expertise. His emergence as newly “disenrolled” Democrat threatens to turn the mayoral contest into “The Hunger Games.”
A former pastor, an urban planner by training, a politician by design and a liberal by inclination, Carrión says he’ll “soon” make up his mind on a mayoral run, presumably as a Republican-Independence “fusion” candidate — an alternative to the liberal “machine” Democrats.
But is he?
Adolfo has formidable political skills, a keen mind and Phil Donahue-like affability.
I’ve known him a long time: I managed his successful 1997 bid for a City Council seat, then worked as his legislative director for two years.
His spokesman extols Carrión as an alternative to the special interests as well as someone who can focus on rebuilding and reuniting all five boroughs.
But he has a long road ahead of him as he seeks to convince Republican and Independence Party leaders that an ex-aide to President Obama can be a centrist candidate for mayor of New York.
His path to victory still requires assembling a broad coalition of interest groups, political machines and ethnic communities. His Spanish surname, nice résumé and toothy grin don’t immediately qualify him.
Will a new “suit” separate him from the pack?
His actual planning experience was limited to stints in the Department of City Planning and as district manager at Bronx Community Board 5.
And the $1.1 million in his campaign war chest pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions and successful signature business that Michael Bloomberg brought along when he ran as a “fusion” candidate back in 2001.
To succeed, Carrión would have to present the most sensible and feasible plan for modernizing our infrastructure, rezoning flood-prone areas and rebuilding where necessary.
Carrión expects developers, general contractors and construction trade unions to gravitate toward him because he supported many large projects in The Bronx.
But is Adolfo the right person to say, “Grifters and grafters need not apply”? While he was in public office, his campaign coffers werereplete with special-interest contributionsfrom PACs, landlords, developers and municipal unions. (In fact, unproved “play-to-pay” allegations arose during his vetting for his White House post.)
For years now, The Bronx has seemed to produce more federal inmates than successful candidates for higher elected office. Political scientist Mitchell Moss has dubbed the borough “a political graveyard” for those with citywide ambitions because its leaders have little experience working across ethnic and class divides.
Many of Adolfo’s past supporters are disappointed that his early political promise did not yield a real legislative record during his time on the City Council or signature accomplishments as borough president.
By all accounts, his tenure as the urban planning czar in the White House and as HUD regional director was unremarkable.
If local Republican leaders buy Carrión’s latest “road to Damascus” transformation, they deserve to be cast into the political wilderness for the next 40 years.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/carrion_new_suit_8bynPbHTcloTG9zNQkZ1eI#ixzz2CpC9yriB
You gonna endorse him Tony?
DeleteNorthwest Bronx Democratic Alliance--Endorsing Republicans since 2005.
According the polling in the following article, Adolfo Carrion would get crushed if he ran for mayor:
ReplyDeleteWall Street Journal, November 21, 2012
POLL: LHOTA WOULD LOSE TO A DEMOCRAT IN MAYORAL RACE
By Michael Howard Saul
If Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota runs for New York City mayor on the GOP line next year, he would lose to an unnamed Democrat 60% to 9%, a poll released Wednesday showed.
Lhota has been much discussed as a potential mayoral candidate after receiving high praise for the MTA’s handling of superstorm Sandy. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that former Mayor Rudy Giuliani believes Lhota, who worked for Giuliani at City Hall, would be a “fantastic” mayor and would do anything to help him win.
Another potential contender for the GOP nomination, Adolfo Carrion, would also get crushed in a hypothetical general election, the survey from the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute showed. If Carrion runs on the GOP line, he also loses 62% to 11%.
Carrion, a former Bronx borough president and a former member of President Barack Obama’s administration, recently left the Democratic Party and became unaffiliated. He would need a special waiver from three of the city’s five GOP chairmen to run on the Republican line.
In New York City, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a six-to-one margin, but the GOP nominee for mayor has won the last five elections. The last Democrat to win City Hall, former Mayor David Dinkins, was elected in 1989.
In 2001, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg first ran for City Hall, he was 40% behind in the polls. Bloomberg, a billionaire, bankrolled his own campaign and vastly outspent his Democratic challenger ...
READ MORE: http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/11/21/poll-lhota-would-lose-to-a-democrat-in-mayoral-race/?mod=WSJBlog&mod=WSJ_NY_NY_Blog
Sounds like Adolfo is toast!
ReplyDeleteCarrión thinks he is a knight on a white horse, but he is the only one who thinks that.
ReplyDelete"Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration. Those with narcissistic personality disorder believe that they're superior to others and have little regard for other people's feelings. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism."
Delete-from Mayo Clinic
Maybe the photo caption should read BITTER REGRET.
ReplyDeletehow is this bad??
ReplyDeleteLiu? DeBlasio? Thompson? "“If the public wants bad government, the public has a right to bad government,” indeed, Mayor Mike. Those three are so arrogant and corrupt, they refused to pay the thousands of dollars they were fined via intentional "illegal posterizing" (ie, festooning every city lamp post with huge cardboard signs with their ugly mugs on them). If these stooges are stinky and tricky enough to try dodging simple fines anyone else has to pay, don't expect them to provide moral leadership. All three of them are political hacks. PS, if Mike prefers Ms. Clinton to Ms. Quinn, add Quinn to the "not going to fly" zone, too.
ReplyDeleteLook at this article:
ReplyDelete----------------
The Wall Street Journal | Jan. 4, 2013
WHITE HOUSE TENURE TRICKY FOR CARRION
By Michael Howard Saul and Laura Meckler
As he prepares to run for New York City mayor, Adolfo Carrión's short tenure in the White House represents both a key element of his résumé and a potential political liability.
Mr. Carrión, who has left the Democratic Party and is seeking the Republican and Independence lines for mayor, has already begun to face questions from GOP officials about why he left a post as director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs in May 2010 after just 14 months. He moved to a midlevel position in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, from which he stepped down in early 2012.
Mr. Carrión's departure drew attention because it coincided with a highly publicized city Conflicts of Interest Board investigation into his personal employment of an architect who had business before Mr. Carrión when he was Bronx borough president. After initially saying everything he did was proper, Mr. Carrión admitted in 2011 to breaking the conflict-of-interest law and paid a $10,000 civil fine.
Staten Island GOP chairman Robert Scamardella asked Mr. Carrión about why he left the White House recently. He said Mr. Carrión told him there was nothing about it that could negatively affect his candidacy, but Mr. Scamardella told The Wall Street Journal that the circumstances should be "probed a little bit more."
In his first extended interview about his time in Washington, Mr. Carrión said Thursday that he left the White House for family reasons: The HUD job was in New York, and he had fulfilled his promise to President Barack Obama to work for one year.
"I stayed longer than I promised. I had to get back home, to New York, which I was very glad to do, and, obviously, my family was very happy to come back, as well," Mr. Carrión said.
According to two people familiar with the matter, White House officials were concerned about his ability to manage relationships with senior administration officials, including Mr. Obama's senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. She and other officials also believed he was using the office to further his career, the people said. One person familiar with the matter said the White House also eventually became concerned that Mr. Carrión hadn't been forthright with White House officials about some details about the Conflicts of Interest Board investigation.
Mr. Carrión disputed the notion that he clashed excessively with Ms. Jarrett and others, though he acknowledged they had "disagreements on ..../
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323374504578219990744341234.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
What a shame that Lhota has become a tool of former Emperor Giulianus.
ReplyDelete