Laura @nahmias and @SallyGold talk to @BilldeBlasio's brain trust about his potential 2020 bid.
"Fucking insane," one said.https://t.co/A6PkVSIN6m
— Jimmy Vielkind (@JimmyVielkind) March 11, 2019
He’s signalling to a very specific demographic, of course. Every morning de Blasio looks in his shaving mirror and whispers “the progressive Dick Cheney… “
… As de Blasio touted his liberal record in Iowa and South Carolina in recent weeks, nearly three dozen former and current aides, consultants and allies who spoke to POLITICO panned the idea or doubted that the mayor would run for the Democratic nomination. Aside from the few people working on the nascent effort, only two said de Blasio should run.
Their reasoning: Some say the 2020 field, a dozen-strong and growing, leaves no room for de Blasio, who’s long struggled to fashion a national persona comparable with past leaders of the country’s largest city, like Rudy Giuliani or Michael Bloomberg. Many note that he has too many glaring, unresolved problems at home. Others say the never-truly-popular de Blasio, whom a top Hillary Clinton backer once called “insufferable,” lacks charisma….
It’s a stark contrast to the typical dynamics of a presidential exploration in which aides and allies tend to egg on the potential candidate. Indeed, the strongest advocate for a de Blasio candidacy seems to be de Blasio himself. Gone is the stable of trusted consultants whose advice he once relied on so heavily that he designated them de facto city employees during his first term. In their place are two City Hall aides volunteering their spare time to work on his explorations, and his wife, Chirlane McCray…
Still, de Blasio has been making moves.
He tapped City Hall communications director Mike Casca, a 2016 Bernie Sanders alum, and Jon Paul Lupo, a top government aide with experience on national Senate races, to work on the effort in their spare time. Last month, he traveled to the battleground state of Iowa, trekking through a snowstorm to tout his successes in New York City to a small groups of voters…
Cold Grey Pre-Dawn Open Thread: Look Who’s Running for VP AlreadyPost + Comments (17)