Mayor Bloomberg may be running on the Republican line this fall, but he’s hardly being treated as an opponent by many Democratic leaders, despite the fact that there’s also, you know, an actual Democratic candidate in the race, comptroller Bill Thompson. First there was Bill Clinton and Charlie Rangel offering Bloomberg effusive praise at separate events last Monday. Rangel refused to take sides in the race, and said Bloomberg has “done a great job.” Clinton echoed that sentiment while dodging a reporter’s question about whether he hoped for a Bloomberg victory, answering, “I think he’s doing a great job.” Now Kirsten Gillibrand is the latest Democratic politician to not really oppose Bloomberg. Though she told the Daily News that she would endorse the Democratic candidate, she could only lamely cite loyalty to the party as a reason for doing so. “Come election time, politics will be politics,” she said, we imagine with an extended, resigned sigh. And Newark’s Democratic mayor, Cory Booker, will go even further today when he outright endorses Bloomberg at an event in Harlem. The way this is headed now, Bill Thompson himself could throw his support behind the increasingly inevitable Bloomberg campaign before too long. Okay, that won’t happen. But it wouldn’t shock us!
