New York City Mayor Does Not Like to Govern, Prefers Campaigning Like The President

The Dengates make their anger plain Monday in Queens.

Photo: Ellis Kaplan

This is a mild response. In 1969, when John Lindsay was Mayor of New York City, a February storm clogged Queens streets and the people wanted to lynch the mayor. Today they are much more tolerant at least in NYC. In Boston the people are shooting each other over cleared out parking spaces. 

[From article]
Streets in Queens remained unplowed late Monday and residents were mad as hell — but Mayor Bill de Blasio said it’s their own fault because they keep shoveling snow off their cars and onto the road.
“I’ve seen some of them myself,” the mayor said during a Monday morning press conference, during which he praised the city’s decision to keep schools open and dubbed himself an “expert on blizzards.”
[. . .]
“He’s blaming us now?! You’re the head of the city, you’re to blame!” fumed Joseph Dengate, who held signs with his 72-year-old parents, Joann and James Dengate, at the corner of 69th Lane and Juniper Boulevard.
“He’s a moron for saying that,” Joseph said of de Blasio’s excuse. “You don’t go on TV and blame hardworking New Yorkers who have to take their kids to school and go to work. It makes me angry to hear him say that, to blame the people who voted for him.”

http://nypost.com/2016/01/26/queens-residents-de-blasios-a-moron-for-snow-comments/

Queens residents: De Blasio’s a ‘moron’ for snow comments
By Lorena Mongelli, Yoav Gonen and Chris Perez
New York Post
January 26, 2016 | 1:35am

White House Is Used For Unending Campaign

[From article]
By now, nearly five and a half years into the Obama presidency, objective people can draw reasonable conclusions, among which are these: Barack Obama was among the least prepared men to ever serve as presidency. It shows. He has been overmatched by events right from the start. He is an excellent campaigner but unusually inept when it comes to governing.
By temperament and experience, based on skill set and ability, Mr. Obama is much better equipped to be a community organizer than to be president of the United States.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/04/24/obamas-staggering-record-of-failure/

Obama’s Staggering Record of Failure
Peter Wehner
04.24.2014 - 3:15 PM
Commentary

Obama Clueless on Governing

"Public sentiment is everything," Abraham Lincoln said. "With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/nothing_broken_dSrR043NIPuOkoUSFVZspI

Nothing's broken

The system's not the problem

New York Post

Last Updated: 7:01 AM, February 20, 2010

Posted: 12:39 AM, February 19, 2010

The ancient Israeli high court made it a practice, Justice Antonin Scalia notes, to invalidate death penalties if they were pronounced unanimously -- on the assumption that something must be wrong. The same rule of thumb should apply to the unanimous pontifications of the political class, which now insists as one that "the system is broken."<p> </p><br /> This line had been gaining traction even prior to the retirement of Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who said as he quit that "Congress is not operating as it should."<p> </p><br /> Everyone agrees -- a surefire sign that something is amiss.<p> </p><br /> Consider the recent record. In the fall of 2008, the US financial system stood on the verge of collapse. Then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson went to Congress with a $700 billion bailout package that was politically unpopular, ideologically uncongenial to both sides -- and sadly necessary.<p> </p><br /> It passed on strong bipartisan votes. Although the package was poorly conceived and quickly abused by the executive branch, it served its purpose. When President Barack Obama says he saved us from another Great Depression, what he means is that Congress passed a rescue months before he took office. If Congress did nothing else for the next four years, this would be a redeeming accomplishment.<p> </p><br /> But it did much more, for better or (almost certainly) worse. Within four weeks of Obama taking office, it passed a sprawling $787 billion stimulus bill. Next came a massive appropriations bill hiking spending by 8 percent. It expanded SCHIP subsidies for child health care another $35 billion.<p> </p><br /> "If we stopped today," Obama bragged in October, "this legislative session would have been one of the most productive in a generation." Just a few months ago, liberal pundits like Jacob Weisberg ("Obama's Brilliant First Year") and Robert Shrum ("For Obama, Success Is at Hand") were marveling at governance in the Age of Obama.<p> </p><br /> All these assessments were made against the backdrop of health-care reform's presumed inevitability. Once it faltered, James Madison's handiwork supposedly collapsed in a pitiful heap.<p> </p><br /> Of course, the Madisonian system is explicitly meant to frustrate an inflamed legislative majority bent on passing sweeping social legislation for which there's limited popular support. It's not that nothing can get done in Washington; it's that Obama wouldn't settle for what could get done. He turned his back on the best template for liberal action on health care through the years: salami-slice steps toward ever more government.<p> </p><br /> We've heard how it takes 60 votes to get anything done in the Senate. But prior to Scott Brown, Obama<p> </p><br />had60 votes. He couldn't forge a consensus within his own party because he never convinced his base to settle for anything less than the outer edge of the possible.<p> </p><br /> Here the example of Evan Bayh is telling. A former leader of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, he cravenly submitted to the left. The former hawk opposed the Iraq surge, and the reputed fiscal conservative took party-line votes in favor of the stimulus and ObamaCare. If he thought he'd be rewarded with national office, he was bitterly disappointed; if he thought his party's center would survive if no one besides Joe Lieberman fought for it, he was sorely mistaken.<p> </p><br /> Obama wouldn't tame the impatient left because he's part of it. After he won in 1964, Lyndon Johnson told his aides he'd won by 16 million votes and would lose a million votes' worth of support every month, so he had to act fast.<p> </p><br /> Obama made the same calculation, but on behalf of an agenda that wasn't popular. If people had been persuaded of its merits, Obama could have made Republicans pay the price for obstruction. "Public sentiment is everything," Abraham Lincoln said. "With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed."<p> </p><br /> If Obama tries to govern from the center, he'll find the system magically restored to health. Otherwise, it will look more miserably broken by the day.<p> </p><br /> comments.lowry@ nationalreview.com<p> </p><br />

Rich Lowry

Can't Stop Campaigning

"During the campaign, Obama could throw a rhetorical pixie dust over all the difficult choices inherent in governing and the contradictions of his own program, making them fade into a beguiling vision of a sun-lit post-Bush America. This magical realism sustained him until November 2008 -- but couldn't withstand governing. [. . .]

Obama's stimulus program -- inevitably, a dog's breakfast of politically driven priorities -- is such a shambles that his aides never utter the word "stimulus" anymore. [. . .]

It's governance as performance art."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_president_reality_problem_WMuCZTkNKv10LAtLG9DLqK

The president's reality problem

Campaign mode doesn't work for governing

New York Post

Last Updated: 10:44 AM, February 12, 2010

Posted: 12:34 AM, February 12, 2010

It might have been the most revelatory moment of the Obama presidency. In an interview with Time magazine, a chastened President Obama talked of his sputtering Middle East peace initiative.<p> </p><br> "This is just really hard," he explained. "This is as intractable a problem as you get."<p> </p><br> As an observation, this is as banal as it gets. After all the wars and all the terror attacks against Israel and all the frustrated American diplomatic forays across the last two administrations, no one should be surprised at the intractability of the Israeli-Arab conflict.<p> </p><br> But Obama sounded as if it were painful new information that had forced an unwelcome adjustment in his worldview.<p> </p><br> This speaks either to an astonishing historical ignorance (did he not know?) or a stupendous self-regard (did he not care because he thought he was so special?), or both.<p> </p><br> There is already a debate over what went wrong with the Obama presidency.<p> </p><br> Is his team of advisers -- nearly universally considered the best and the brightest until the day before yesterday -- serving him poorly? Has he failed to communicate effectively, even though almost all his speeches have been critically acclaimed? Did he fail to "pivot to jobs" fast enough?<p> </p><br> Actually, Obama has a more worrisome problem: a reality gap.<p> </p><br> During the campaign, Obama could throw a rhetorical pixie dust over all the difficult choices inherent in governing and the contradictions of his own program, making them fade into a beguiling vision of a sun-lit post-Bush America. This magical realism sustained him until November 2008 -- but couldn't withstand governing.<p> </p><br> Consider Obama's most elemental appeal as a candidate: He excited the base of his own party while winning over the center with talk of "post-partisanship." On the stump, he could maintain this balance. In office, he had to choose either partisanship in the form of his powerful Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, or postpartisanship in the form of concessions to Republicans that would anger and disappoint his own side. He chose Nancy Pelosi, and watched independents flee from him.<p> </p><br> On fiscal policy, Obama could promise massive new programs at the same time, in one debate, he asserted his approach would mean "a net spending cut." A laughable contradiction, it wasn't fully exposed until Obama had to write a budget. With $1 trillion deficits now stretching off into the horizon, his answer is appointing a commission to study the matter.<p> </p><br> Obama is still the same illusionist from the campaign on his signature health-care initiative. The new $1 trillion entitlement will reduce the deficit. It will insure millions more people while bending the cost curve down. The hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare cuts will be utterly painless. There's no trade-off or sacrifice in sight, and -- not surprisingly -- people don't believe it.<p> </p><br> Obama came to office under fundamental misapprehensions that hamper him still. It's not<p> </p><br>truethat all that was keeping the Israelis and Palestinians apart was the lack of US engagement, or that the Iranians were amenable to getting talked out of their nuclear program, or that Guantanamo Bay was a pointless contrivance.<p> </p><br> Nor is it true that government is a sustainable source of economic growth, or a more efficient allocator of capital than the market. This is why Obama's stimulus program -- inevitably, a dog's breakfast of politically driven priorities -- is such a shambles that his aides never utter the word "stimulus" anymore. It is on to the next program, a nearly $100 billion "jobs" bill that reflects the touching belief that to work as intended a program only has to be named appropriately.<p> </p><br> Obama's advisers want him to pull out of his downdraft by getting back to campaign mode. It's governance as performance art. He's hosting a bipartisan health-care summit on Feb. 25. Surely, he'll sound great and spin gorgeous webs of fancy -- as the reality gap yawns beneath him.<p> </p><br>comments.lowry@ nationalreview.com<p> </p><br>

Rich Lowry

Paterson Should Stop Running and Be Governor


Paterson needs to stop running for office and just be Governor for a while. (Editorial, "Ravitch's Wise Advice, NYPost, October 6, 2009; Brendan Scott, "Haunted gov rips 'phantom' rivals," NYPost, October 5, 2009) He acts more like Obama, who is always campaigning and does not know how to govern. Instead of baiting rivals Paterson should propose and force hard choices on the legislature. His fear of offending interest groups will lead to lower ratings. He needs to act showing he has a spine.




http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/ravitch_wise_advice_clWHK7g1QZxUaGAZZtCO4H

Ravitch's wise advice
Editorial
New York Post
Last Updated: 12:53 AM, October 6, 2009
Posted: October 06, 2009


* * *

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/paterson_issues_challenge_to_candidates_6bQ0gwGgSpOJIVGIkYO8dN

Paterson issues challenge to 2010 candidates
By BRENDAN SCOTT
New York Post
Last Updated: 10:55 AM, October 5, 2009
Posted: 9:19 AM, October 5, 2009

Who Runs the Government?


http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/09/who_is_doing_the_governing.html

September 27, 2009
American Thinker
Who is doing the governing?
By Robert A. Bonelli