When Mayor Bloomberg finally won his third term late last night, we knew, out of all the broken hearts in this city, one in particular would be especially broken. “For the people to vote for Bloomberg again,” Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too (Damn) High Party, told us, with an exasperated sigh, “the people love to be lied to. People will say, ‘You can’t buy me,’ but you’re lying, because you were bought yesterday.” McMillan’s own showing 2,615 votes, or 0.24 percent was down about 1,500 votes from his last run in 2005. Nevertheless, he says he was “very satisfied” with his performance. One reason for the dropoff is that the city’s Board of Elections had removed “damn” from the party name for space considerations. Without the passionate adjective, McMillan told us, some of his loyal voters didn’t even realize he was on the ballot. That seemed implausible, but McMillan explained, “They’re used to Rent Is Too Damn High. Most of them don’t even know my name,” he said. “They call me, in my neighborhood, Papa Smurf.”
Though he doesn’t blame the Board of Elections entirely for his loss, McMillan isn’t willing to just let bygones be bygones, and plans to take them to court for bastardizing his party’s identity. “A lot of legal papers are going to start flying as soon as Mr. McMillan calms down,” he told us. “I am pissed.” In the meantime, he’ll be holding auditions to fill out his band, which already has offers to perform rent-themed tracks at a college whose name presently escapes him, and at a club on Eldridge Street, the name of which he also couldn’t recall.
