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<\/p>\nSource: Politics<\/p>\n
NEW YORK \u2014 <\/b>Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg had a knack for attracting top-tier staff and commanding loyalty in the City Hall he ran for more than a decade as well as the campaigns he waged to get there.<\/p>\n
But as those staffers take up positions in opposing camps for this year\u2019s Democratic mayoral primary, the Bloomberg alumni are lobbing grenades at each other, on the trail and online, as the candidates grow more restive by the day \u2014 referring to their former trenchmates as tone-deaf, disingenuous and one candidate\u2019s supporters as a \u201cclown car.\u201d<\/p>\n
For 12 years, Bloomberg dominated city politics \u2014 a billionaire three-term mayor who first ran as a Republican but launched a public health push against tobacco and sugary drinks, and was a prominent gun control and environmental advocate. Since 2014, though, Mayor Bill de Blasio has largely repudiated his legacy and exiled most of his loyalists from City Hall. Bloomberg\u2019s former aides are now back in the mix, shaping the race to choose de Blasio\u2019s successor.<\/p>\n
Chris Coffey, who spent twelve years in Blomberg\u2019s City Hall and mayoral campaigns, is the co-campaign manager for frontrunner Andrew Yang. The firm he works for, Tusk Strategies, is headed by Bradley Tusk, Bloomberg\u2019s 2009 campaign manager.<\/p>\n
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City Comptroller Scott Stringer\u2019s campaign manager is Micah Lasher, Bloomberg\u2019s director of state legislative affairs.<\/p>\n
The former mayor\u2019s longtime press secretary Stu Loeser is working on former Wall Street exec Ray McGuire\u2019s campaign, while Menashe Shapiro, who worked on Bloomberg\u2019s mayoral and presidential campaigns, is a consultant to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.<\/p>\n
After Yang criticized the city teachers union<\/a> in an interview with POLITICO for slowing down the reopening of schools, Adams chided him for pointing fingers, drawing a jab from Coffey.<\/p>\n \u201cPointing fingers accomplishes nothing, says the guy pointing fingers at every public event about Andrew for the last 3 weeks to try to get some press. Got it,\u201d Coffey said in a tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Shapiro shot back<\/a>: \u201cTelling the truth is not an attack. This is a serious election for the city\u2019s future. Stop saying things that are wrong, and we\u2019ll stop correcting.\u201d<\/p>\n Coffey said his fellow operatives are piling on Yang because of his frontrunner status.<\/p>\n \u201cI think in every case these are fights that someone else starts,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with their campaign strategy. I think New Yorkers are looking for hope and optimism … If the only way you\u2019re going to get attention is by being negative and nasty, I\u2019m just not sure that\u2019s what New Yorkers want.\u201d<\/p>\n Another dustup between Coffey and Shapiro came when Adams attacked Yang\u2019s plan<\/a> to give cash payments to some New Yorkers, and Coffey responded with a statement citing Adams’ past as a registered Republican and calling him an \u201cenabler\u201d of the Independent Democratic Conference \u2014 a group of breakaway Democrats in the state Senate who caucused with Republicans giving them control of the chamber for years. Coffey added that<\/a> the borough president \u201cnever disavowed IDC,\u201d and supported IDC-aligned former state Sen. Jesse Hamilton, who was defeated<\/a> in a primary challenge by Sen. Zellnor Myrie.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a lovely standard, especially coming from a candidate who never voted in a city election, but who has the \u2018chutzpah\u2019 to criticize someone [who] voted for one city Dem over another,\u201d Shapiro tweeted<\/a>, referring to the fact that Yang has skipped voting in a number of local elections.<\/p>\n Shapiro said the clashes are inevitable with Yang and Adams in first and second place in the polls.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a function of the fact that this is really ostensibly a two-person race. It\u2019s nothing personal\u201d he said. \u201cI feel very strongly that Eric Adams is the best choice to lead this city, and I\u2019m bringing my A game to that. I think the world of all my Bloomberg colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n Coffey too said the fighting was business, not personal.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are friends of mine,\u201d he said. \u201cI expect when this race is over we will all, to varying degrees, be friends again.\u201d<\/p>\n Lasher and Coffey also clashed after Stringer took shots at Yang\u2019s idea for a casino on Governors Island<\/a> and his excuse for leaving the city<\/a> at the height of the pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cInstead of talking about an optimistic vision for New York, and getting the City open, he talks about the past and makes increasingly desperate attacks,\u201d Coffey said<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019ll stick to our message that hope is on the way and let other campaigns unravel on their own. Talk about missing the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cActual hope \u2014 not just tweeting the word over and over again \u2014 comes from serious plans that will make a meaningful difference in New Yorkers lives,\u201d Lasher responded<\/a>, setting off some additional sparring between the two.<\/p>\n In other tweets, Lasher referred to<\/a> Yang\u2019s supporters as a \u201cclown car\u201d and said the former presidential hopeful<\/a> \u201cembraces a group of super-aggressive online supporters who proudly call themselves a gang.\u201d<\/p>\n Like the other operatives, Lasher said he remains on good terms with his former colleagues.<\/p>\n \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that I\u2019m going to hold back when I think their candidate is doing or saying something worthy of criticism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Loeser this week went after Yang\u2019s online supporters, calling them out individually in a five hour-long series of tweets<\/a> for not being New York City voters. \u201cSick burn, nameless and faceless #YangGang<\/a> Twitter account that was created in January 2021,\u201d he said in one tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lasher jumped in<\/a> to critique the \u201cincredibly hostile tone the #YangGang<\/a> takes all day\u201d after another Yang adviser, Eric Soufer, tweeted at Loeser<\/a> that \u201cyou\u2019re embarrassing yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve noticed that every time I tweet something about Andrew Yang, I get besieged by comments from Twitter handles, very few of which have names and faces associated with them, very many of which have numbers in their names, and virtually none of which appear to be actual people living in New York,\u201d Loeser said in an interview. \u201cI believe in the scientific method. I have a hypothesis that most of the support that Andrew Yang has online are either not verifiable people, or at least not New Yorkers.\u201d<\/p>\n Bloomberg has not himself waded into the race, while his senior adviser Howard Wolfson has conducted a series of interviews<\/a> with the candidates for Bloomberg Opinion.<\/p>\n Two of the mayoral candidates are themselves veterans of the Bloomberg administration. Kathryn Garcia was deputy commissioner at the Department of Environmental Protection under Bloomberg before becoming Mayor Bill de Blasio\u2019s sanitation commissioner.<\/p>\n Shaun Donovan was Bloomberg\u2019s Housing Preservation and Development commissioner. But he does not frequently bring up the former mayor on the trail, more often touting his connections to President Barack Obama, for whom he was Housing and Urban Development secretary and budget director.<\/p>\n That doesn\u2019t sit well with some Bloomberg loyalists.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Shaun was housing commissioner, he was more than happy to be the public face of hundreds of people who were helping New York recover from an economic crisis post-9\/11,\u201d Loeser said. \u201cHis unwillingness to do virtually anything to acknowledge that experience in running for mayor is an insult to the hundreds of people whose work he often spoke about.\u201d<\/p>\n Donovan disputes the idea that he has shied away from his connection to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n \u201cI am immensely proud of the work I did with Mayor Bloomberg, as well as Presidents Obama and Biden,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cTogether, we worked hand-in-hand to rebuild our city in the wake of 9\/11 and to recover after Hurricane Sandy. Mayor Bloomberg is a strong leader and great manager who made NYC healthier and safer through his health care and gun control policies, and helped the city become a leader in combating climate change, a legacy I plan to build upon. Both New York City and I have benefited greatly from the Mayor’s crisis management experience.”<\/p>\n In another swipe at Donovan, Loeser gave props to Garcia for vowing to bring back Birdie, the environmental mascot de Blasio\u2019s administration phased out.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s nice to see someone who was part of the Bloomberg Administration not run away from some of the most ambitious sustainability projects ever undertaken by a local government,\u201d he said in a tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n On that, he and Coffey of the Yang campaign agreed. \u201cGod I love this tweet,\u201d Coffey wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/0e\/75\/1274483741ea916eb2ed12e5155b\/210224-eric-adams-getty-773.jpg\")
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