Ferrer Hits Bloomberg on Harlem Absence

It is about time that the Ferrer folks started to attack the mayor's $100 million infomercial disguised as a campaign. The only drawback may be the setting and leading actor in a supporting role: Harlem and Al Sharpton. We definitely hope that this doesn't prove to be the case because Mayor Mike's refusal has the ability to expose some of the fallacies inherent in the Bloomberg blitz.

The utility of the attack is in its potential to drag the mayor down from his billionaire balcony and force him to engage in the rough and tumble of an actual campaign. Clearly David Garth and the rest of the mayor's team want to avoid spontaneity at all costs. As long as they can flood the air waves with their own canned message and keep the mayor confined to photo-ops and controlled events their chances of electoral success are assured.

This is clearly revealed in the remarks from NY One's Bob Hardt who noted that the mayor's folks were most concerned with the station's "lightening round" format that would have exposed the "rhetorically disabled" Bloomberg to the need for quick, off-the-cuff responses. It's not that we're looking forward to the mayor's verbal stumbling, it's that it is important to force Mike into a creative and unscripted defense of his record in areas that he has been, so far, unwilling to go.