New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio elbowed his way into the presidential race Thursday, adding another name to an ever-growing field of more than 20 major contenders vying for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
Undaunted by jeers in his own backyard, Mr. de Blasio pitched himself as well-suited to take on President Trump, touting a record of delivering on key liberal priorities in his city and expressing an interest in taking them to the national level.
“We’re pretty streetwise people in this city. We know a con man when we see one. We know his tricks, and I feel strongly he just has to be confronted,” Mr. de Blasio said of the president. “And he likes to give his little nicknames, I’ll give him one back: ’Con Don.’ It says everything you need to know about him.”
Mr. de Blasio said his campaign will put an emphasis on working people, pointing to his success in raising city employees’ minimum wage to $15 an hour and expanding sick leave, health care and pre-K benefits for city residents.
“These are things that changed working people’s lives for the better — all Americans deserve that kind of opportunity to live a better life,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
He’ll now have to try to carve out space in the already crowded field, where his liberal positions are humdrum stuff.
“It’s possible for someone, anyone to hook on an issue and ride that issue, but it’s hard to see what de Blasio’s issue would be,” said Paul Goldman, a former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia. “It’s hard to see where he would be, ’I’m the only one. If you believe in X, you got to stay with me.’”
His entrance also comes as many Democrats are trying to combat the image of a party led by coastal elites. Hillary Clinton, the party’s 2016 presidential nominee, is a former U.S. senator from New York, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, currently the highest-ranking elected official in the party, represents San Francisco.
“He’s got to transcend that image that he is indeed just far too East Coast-oriented — you know, that intellectual, urban, urbane establishment,” said Leonard Cutler, a political-science professor at Siena College near Albany.
Still, Mr. Cutler said there may be room.
“Why not?” he said. “It’s open, and who can tell what’s going to happen — especially in a primary season where voters are unpredictable.”
In a Quinnipiac University poll released last month, three-quarters of New York City voters said they didn’t think Mr. de Blasio should run for president.
“This city has a love-hate relationship with its mayor,” said Sid Davidoff, a past aide to John V. Lindsay, the former mayor who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972. “It wants him here, but it is always criticizing him when he is here.”
But Mr. de Blasio does have a legitimate story to tell with a record that also includes trying to roll back the NYPD’s “stop and frisk” policy that became a national controversy during the tenure of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Mr. Davidoff said.
“Other than Cory Booker none of them has the background that he has in running a city of eight-and-a-half million people, of 300,000 employees, a police department that’s bigger than most armies,” he said. “You could point to his failures, but you have to also point to his accomplishments, and so therefore I think he is separate from the crowd.”
Mr. de Blasio’s plans were greeted with unbridled mockery from Republicans, with Mr. Trump taunting him on Twitter as “the worst mayor in the U.S.” and a “JOKE.”
Patrick Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York, said Mr. de Blasio would be an “unmitigated disaster” as commander-in-chief.
“While the mayor of our nation’s largest city is busy running around Iowa and getting upstaged by the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, there are real problems here at home,” Mr. Lynch said.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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