We're Back! (and so are they)

We took a week off to rest and recuperate; but we're back with a renewed vengeance today-what with Mayor Mike looking as if it will take the FBI HRT team to remove him from City Hall in 2009. There is nothing more tenacious in this world than a politician trying to cling to power, even when the clock has struck midnight-and Mike Bloomberg, stripped of the non-political spinning-is certainly no different.

The NY Post captures all of this subterfuge; talk about two faced: "In an abrupt reversal, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday left the door open to supporting a change to the term-limits law through legislation. "My job is if the City Council comes to us with a piece of legislation, we will look at it, we will consider it, and we'll make what I hope is an informed judgment into what is in the best interest in the city," the mayor said. "The City Council has the right to change term limits if they want to."

Oh, please! This is all about as subtle as a Paris Hilton sex tape. Bloomberg simply doesn't want to leave, and will do anything to avoid becoming an ex-mayor before he's really ready to leave. So what does he do? He works his business acolytes up to create an astro turf groundswell; all the while we nudges Speaker Quinn to reconsider her firmly stated opposition to the term limits overhaul.

As the NY Daily News reported yesterday: "City Council Speaker Christine Quinn froze any talk of changing term limits last year, but people who have spoken with her see signs of a thaw.
"I sense movement on both the speaker's side and the mayor's side," said Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens). "I sense movement that I hadn't sensed before." If Quinn joins Mayor Bloomberg in tacitly supporting an extension so they can run for another four-year term, it will set up the choice of her political life."

Indeed it will. But you can see the handwriting on the wall here, can't you? As the News points out: "The thawing, however, has begun. One insider who spoke with her said Quinn is already speculating about how to round up enough Council votes to extend term limits with a simple resolution." The only thing standing in the way of these two partners in crime may be the people of the city who have made their position on term limits rather clear, don't you think?

And the twin about face will put both Bloomberg and Quinn in a rather unpopular public spotlight. After all, here's what Quinn said last year on this topic: "I will not support the repeal or change of term limits through any mechanism, and I will oppose aggressively any attempt by anyone to make any changes in the term limits law," she said in December." As the Post highlights as well: "That would be a tough hurdle for Quinn, who announced last year it wouldn't be fair to overturn term limits through legislation. "I believe that overruling the will of New Yorkers . . . would be anti-democratic and anti-reform," she said then."

And now the mayor is weaseling on all of this as well/ It is time for the folks to be heard on this. We're ready to join forces with any and all to insure that self-serving pols don't try to maintain themselves against the wishes of the vast majority of New Yorkers.