The untold story is how few famous or prominent politicians want to be mayor. A huge departure from 2013, when at least five very viable Democrats tried to replace Michael Bloomberg.
nytimes.com/2020/09/24/nyr…
Consider the field today. It's literally two elected officials of note - Borough President Eric Adams and Comptroller Scott Stringer - and a bunch of people who have never held elected office before. It may be the thinnest Democratic primary in modern history.
Going to do a Substack on this but it strikes me there are two factors at play: the terrible state NYC is in, due to COVID-19 and the subsequent economic crisis, and the nationalization of our politics, which has made relative do-nothing perches like Congress much more attractive
Consider 1977. NYC was in the depths of a terrible fiscal crisis. Still, *every* prominent Democrat in the five boroughs was desperate to defeat Abe Beame. Ed Koch couldn't wait to get out of Congress. Mario Cuomo, Bella Abzug, Percy Sutton, Herman Badillo all ran.
In 2021, why run for mayor when you can get more retweets and national TV appearances hanging out in Congress, taking credit for cool stuff and dodging blame for bad stuff? No one gets mad at you when the school budgets are cut, garbage isn't picked up, a cop kills someone.
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.