New York City – Mayor Candidate Feels Cold Shoulder From Obama

New York City – To bolster Democratic prospects, President Obama has tried to elbow New York’s governor, David A. Paterson, out of next year’s race, and has thrown his weight behind New Jersey’s governor, Jon S. Corzine, in next month’s election.

Then there is the mayoral race in New York City.

Here, the president has all but ignored the Democrat running on a message of change and embraced the incumbent running on the Republican ballot on Nov. 3.

Confused?

So is William C. Thompson Jr., the Democratic nominee for mayor this fall.

Since Mr. Obama’s election, Mr. Thompson, the city’s comptroller, has found his attempts to piggyback on Mr. Obama’s popularity thoroughly drowned out by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has tethered himself to the new president.

Mr. Bloomberg has met with the president four times since his inauguration, held public events with four of his cabinet members, and heaped praise on the new administration at every turn, no matter how mundane the occasion.

“Superb move,” Mr. Bloomberg declared in a press release after Mr. Obama created the obscure-sounding job of chief performance officer at the White House.

On Tuesday, he accepted the endorsement of a close Obama ally, John D. Podesta, who ran Mr. Obama’s transition team last fall. The mayor’s conspicuous courtship of the president and his allies has deprived Mr. Thompson of a natural advantage in an election in which he enjoys painfully few of them. He trails Mr. Bloomberg in name recognition, money, endorsements and, now, love from the nation’s top Democrat.

After meeting with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office recently to discuss education, Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire former media mogul, said he and the president “have a lot in common.”

Mr. Thompson, the city’s first black comptroller, begs to differ. “The mayor thinks that if he stands close enough to Obama, people will mistake him for the president,” he said. “That’s not going to happen, trust me.”

At stake, for Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Thompson, is much more than photo ops and bragging rights. Support from the popular president could transform what now seems to be a lopsided race, giving Mr. Thompson a needed boost in the polls or further solidifying Mr. Bloomberg’s commanding lead.

There may be little upside for Mr. Obama to weigh in to a local race whose outcome would have little bearing on his agenda in Washington and choosing the losing candidate would diminish his standing a year before crucial mid-term elections.

But the White House has left the door open, saying that the president would not rule out an endorsement in the New York City mayor’s race.

So both candidates are quietly — or not so quietly — jockeying for the president’s blessing. Mr. Thompson’s campaign manager traveled to Washington a few months ago to meet with a senior White House official and make the case for a presidential endorsement.

At first blush, Mr. Thompson seems like the obvious choice. The president and the comptroller share party affiliation, race and a political pedigree. (Mr. Obama rose through Chicago’s Democratic machine; Mr. Thompson marched through New York’s.)

Early in the presidential campaign, Mr. Bloomberg privately complained that Mr. Obama was “inexperienced at running things” and “too willing to make political compromises,” according to a new biography of the mayor, “Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics” (PublicAffairs, 2009), by Joyce Purnick, a former columnist and metropolitan editor for The New York Times.

Even when it became clear Mr. Obama would prevail, Mr. Bloomberg refused to endorse him, and he repeatedly praised his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, a personal friend.

Mr. Thompson, by contrast, eagerly endorsed Mr. Obama and briefly volunteered for him in Pennsylvania. “Billy has a natural lineage to an Obama-like candidacy,” said Al Sharpton, who is close to both Mr. Obama and Mr. Thompson.

“But,” he added, “the mayor has a much bigger megaphone to broadcast his relationship with the president, which makes it seem bigger than it probably is.”

That handicap has been on vivid display on the campaign trail, where Mr. Thompson describes waiting in line for two hours to vote for Mr. Obama, an experience he says helped motivate him to run for mayor.

At a union hall the story brought the mostly black audience to their feet. “There is a man who sits in Washington — his name is Barack Obama — because of people like you!” he thundered. “In New York City, we can do the same thing!”

“Yes we can!” the workers shouted.

Unfortunately for Mr. Thompson, nobody outside the room heard it.

But here’s what 300,000 people did hear: that Mr. Bloomberg had endorsed Mr. Obama’s health care plan.

Only a handful of people attended the press conference in Washington where Mr. Bloomberg announced it. But the mayor’s campaign paid for automated telephone calls, known as robo-calls, to 300,000 numbers to spread the word. “Like President Obama, Mayor Bloomberg says it’s time to put politics aside,” said the voice of a campaign worker on the recording.

Soon after, the mayor’s campaign mailed out a brochure quoting Arne Duncan, Mr. Obama’s secretary of education, praising New York City’s public schools for making “real progress” under Mr. Bloomberg.

Of course, publicity alone does not explain the mayor’s close ties to the Obama White House. Aides to the both men said they are, in many ways, kindred spirits, focused on postpartisan politics (in theory, if not always in practice), public health and environmental sustainability.

Indeed, the president has called Mr. Bloomberg an “outstanding mayor.”

Cory A. Booker, the mayor of Newark, said Mr. Bloomberg’s success was indisputable, even to Democrats, who would like to take back control of City Hall. “At some point, you have to stop looking at party and start looking at progress,” he said as he ticked off Mr. Bloomberg’s accomplishments.

Still, White House aides said they have been taken aback by the onslaught of attention from the Bloomberg administration.

One adviser said the president’s office had been bombarded with requests by Mr. Bloomberg’s office for joint press conferences and meetings. “For every one thing we do with them, we turned down five of them,” said the adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid offending the mayor.

The White House would welcome similar overtures from Mr. Thompson. But so far, they have been limited at best. “There will be opportunities to do things with the White House,” Mr. Thompson said in an interview.

His supporters are wagering that voters will look past White House meetings and presidential name-dropping when casting a ballot in the mayor’s race.

“In this race, Bill is the anti-establishment candidate who represents change,” said David Pollak, who ran Mr. Obama’s campaign in New York. “Mr. Bloomberg is the status quo candidate.”

Inside the union hall where Mr. Thompson spoke, Marissa Green, a city employee, said she saw parallels between Mr. Thompson and Mr. Obama.

“They are both about change,” she said. And, she added, “Nobody thought Barack Obama would ever be president, did they?”