Mike and Andy’s Report Cards
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Local pols, pundits and plain folks grade the Mayor and Governor. Who will go to the head of the class? Who will need to serve detention?
The report card. It"s the perennially dreaded marker of achievement's or failure's that one hopes to escape after graduation, but Our Town decided it was about time to grade our third-term mayor and first-term governor.
We talked to politicians, journalists, advisors, community leaders and regular folks in the neighborhood and asked them to confer grades on the executive leaders of their city and state, and the answers came back unsurprisingly consistent's Cuomo good, Bloomberg not so good. While Bloomberg"s grades ranged from a single A at the most generous to a few C-minuses, his average hovers in the high C range's average, passable, but nothing you"d be proud to stick on the fridge. Cuomo, on the other hand, maintains a solid A average and generally positive comments. Riding high on a successful legislative session and benefiting from a yet-to-be-determined political reputation, while Bloomberg appears mired in the muck of a third term, the governor earned accolades from almost everyone Our Town interviewed, on and off the record.
Photo by Andrew Schwartz.
“I give the governor an A, said Assembly Member Micah Kellner. “After Governor Spitzer and Governor Paterson, I think a lot of folks wanted to renew their belief that state government could work again, and Governor Cuomo showed that by not only coming up with innovative ideas but really delivering. Even if an idea was not his own, he said, “We"ll make it work."
“He restored respect for the legislature and for Albany generally, as an idea, and that"s not insignificant, said political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, giving the governor an A. “This is the first time in four governors we"ve had anything like this. The last one we had was the governor named Cuomo.
“His legislative session is unparalleled in its ability to turn a decade of seeming Albany dysfunction into what is wildly seen as the most productive season in recent memory, said Scott Levenson, president of The Advance Group, a consulting firm that has worked on Eliot Spitzer"s gubernatorial campaign and Cuomo"s campaign for attorney general. “Coupled with gay marriage and continued national speculation, he enters next year with momentum unmatched.
Michael Powell, who writes about government and politics for the New York Times, gave Cuomo a split grade: “A as a pol, B-minus as a wonk. The ever-controlling new governor played his first six months with near perfect political pitch. He rolled and intimidated those he wanted to roll and intimidate, and he played to the right (the property tax cap), the goo-goos (ethics reform) and liberals with gay marriage.
Doug Muzio, a political scientist, gave Cuomo an A-minus and said that he has had a “very impressive first semester. He led without being a demagogue or a bully. Still, he pointed out that credit goes also to the legislature, of course. “The bulk of the significant legislative work was largely accomplished in the classic Albany three-men-in-the-room-mega-log-roll, where everything is connected to everything, Muzio said.
“It"s the joy of the honeymoon, said City Council Member Gale Brewer. “He gets an A-plus for the passage of marriage equality, a 90 for deal making, 90 for PR and 90 for making it look easy. But he also gets a 75 for not adequately strengthening rent regulations, and a B for partial ethics reform and the ongoing redistricting discussion. Overall, that still averages out to an A-minus in Brewer"s book.
Even with such high grades, Muzio said that there are “too many unknowns for a straight A. What will be the unintended consequences of, for instance, a 2-percent property tax cap? Medicaid and education aid cuts? Will the legislature gut ethics oversight? What about redistricting, et cetera? We"ll see.
While Cuomo earned high marks for mostly similar reasons's across the board, he was commended for leading a productive legislative session, passing gay marriage and ethics reform and, more intangibly but nonetheless importantly, being viewed as a strong leader's critics and defenders of Bloomberg landed on some of the same points and some varying ones. Several people pointed to the Cathie Black debacle to justify different grades.
Levenson, who gave Bloomberg a D, lambasted the mayor"s “tone deafness on education, as seen in the handling of Cathie Black.
Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal also pointed to “that huge stumble with instating Cathie Black, but said that his recovery in appointing Dennis Walcott to replace her bumped Bloomberg"s grade up a few notches, to a solid C (her main objections are over the administration"s slowness to eradicate PCBs in public schools). “Dennis Walcott was a marked improvement, Rosenthal said. “He moved up a few steps from the back of the class that he"d been in from appointing her. [But] his threats to fire teachers, his attempts to negotiate around the UFT's I didn"t like him threatening to lay off 4,000 teachers. Fellow Assembly Member Micah Kellner agreed. “He continues to play the boy who cried wolf when it comes to layoffs, he said of Bloomberg, to whom he gave a C-minus. “The only reason I give him credit at all was that we dragged him kicking and screaming to create more accessible taxis, which came after the initial “Taxi of Tomorrow design was criticized for ignoring the needs of handicapped passengers. Kellner also vehemently denied that Bloomberg deserves credit for the one thing that others hold up as his saving grace's championing the passage of gay marriage.
“We would have had gay marriage six years ago in this state had it not been for one person, Michael Bloomberg, said Kellner, referring to the city"s legal challenge of a judge"s ruling in 2005 that the city could not legally deny same-sex couples marriage licenses. At Bloomberg"s behest, even though he said he supported same-sex marriage, the city fought to overturn the decision.
“The mayor had the choice to appeal that decision or not. He did the political thing at that time and worked to have the decision overturned, said Kellner. “It was city tax dollars used to deny the residents of New York City their civil rights and their ability to get married. Kellner scoffed at “the idea that the history is going to get rewritten and the mayor is going to be some sort of champion of gay marriage.
Bob Morgan, president of the Metropolitan Republican Club, gave the mayor an even-handed B-minus.
“He is honest and works hard and has consolidated the gains in crime and quality of life that we first saw under Mayor Giuliani, Morgan said. “On the other hand, the mayor sometimes gets too involved in ‘nanny state" issues, like the trans-fat bans and outdoor smoking regulations.
George Arzt, president of his eponymous communications and consulting firm, noted that the mayor needs to focus on securing his reputation with big-picture initiatives.
“Third-term woe is taking its toll, Arzt said, explaining his B-minus grade. “There is a need to get some legacy projects completed in the next two-plus years.
The mayor has recently come under fire for pushing what some see as a legacy project, the construction of a new marine waste transfer station on East 96th Street near Asphalt Green; many Upper East Side residents have criticized the mayor for dumping on their neighborhood in what they say is a push to get something big accomplished in his final term.
But then again, some say that the mayor is doing just fine. Hank Sheinkopf gave Bloomberg his sole A.
“If we look at the relative financial shape of the city compared to the state, the city is in much better shape, Sheinkopf said. “The city continues to function well on a day-to-day basis. Quality of life and crime remain fairly static. People are safe, the government functions's that"s what a mayor"s supposed to do.
Many cited a bad case of third-term-itis affecting the mayor"s score. Michael Powell gave Bloomberg a B-minus.
“He was warned, over and over again, that third terms are the witching hour for pols, in which they make fatal turns toward mediocrity. And his reaction to the blizzard's what, me worry?'s almost did him in before the third term started, said Powell. “He"s still smart, and he"s still got some fine commissioners, at HPD and HDC, and of course at DOT, with Sadik-Khan, the scourge of drivers. But he"s got to pick up his game and decide why he"s sitting there for the next three years.
“What we"re having is third-term fatigue, and that is certainly not a reason to downgrade someone's because you"re tired of them, Sheinkopf said. “That"s why 2013 was invented.
As speculation heats up and serious mayoral candidates get in line for that future election, Bloomberg"s legacy may already be written as some people see it. But the governor, even amid spectacularly premature presidential bid buzz, has a long way to go before anyone can predict what his legacy will ultimately be.
“Governor Cuomo gets an incomplete, said Bob Morgan. “He is clearly a better leader than his two predecessors. However, there is so much more to be done in making New York an economically viable state with a business climate that attracts employers and jobs that it is too early to give the governor a definitive grade.
Grading the Mayor and Governor
We asked pols, pundits and people on the streets to grade the Mayor and the Governor on their recent job performance. We then compiled those scores and averaged them. Bloomberg scored a 78.5, which translates to a C+. Cuomo"s came in at 92, which is an A-.
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