If 15-year-olds can serve on the advisory board of Cory Booker’s startup, then certainly they can dole out advice on who to vote for in New York’s mayoral election – particularly if the candidate in question happens to be their dad. Bill de Blasio has tried to set himself apart by frequently discussing his exceedingly diverse family on the campaign trail, and now he’s stepping things up with an ad featuring his son Dante. Some rivals have questioned his strategy, but the New York Times reports that de Blasio aides feel featuring his two biracial, public-school attending teens helps emphasize that de Blasio would be a much different mayor than Michael Bloomberg, who’s “a wealthy white divorced father who sent his children to private academies,” as the paper puts it.
It also boosts de Blasio’s criticism of one of Bloomberg’s most notorious policies. Dante de Blasio’s claim that his dad is the “only one who will end an era of that unfairly targets people of color,” has extra weight coming from a black teen. (Though the Times’ fact-check notes, “he is not the only candidate to call for major changes in how the tactic is used.”)
So far we haven’t seen much of the other candidates’ family members. We’ve certainly heard quite a bit about him, but luckily for little Jordan Weiner, he isn’t old enough to participate in his dad’s campaign.
