Tuesday, October 27, 2009

How Bloomie wins friends and influences people

From NY Magazine:

The mayor is not a dictator. He can’t unilaterally decree major changes, and he still has to strike bargains with two legislative bodies—the City Council (generally a formality) and the State Legislature (more difficult, particularly when dealing with the inscrutable Sheldon Silver). But Bloomberg gets what he wants more than any mayor in modern memory.

The foundation of Bloomberg’s imperial mayoralty is, obviously, money. He’s used his vast personal fortune—$17.5 billion at last Forbes estimate—relentlessly and creatively to reverse the standard political dynamic: Instead of the special interests’ buying off the politicians, the city’s top politician has bought off the special interests. Money has allowed him to create the Bloomberg Party, whose clubhouse is the business elite and whose field troops are enlisted issue by issue. Bloomberg employs large segments of the city’s political class, directly and indirectly, and his philanthropy, often done in secret, gives him a very large circle of friends. Opposing him can be an exceedingly lonely occupation.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Opposing him can be lonely?

Oh come on, its fun. History is full of relics that thought they could buy their way through problems.

This guy is the best thing our there for the oppostion. His support is a mile wide and an inch deep.

He has shaken people out of their apathic complaceny. A big undercurrent of anger out there.

All that is needed is a charismatic person to tap into it.

It will happen.

Adolf Bloomhitler said...

All that is needed is a charismatic person to tap into it.


Danke schön