Urban Elephants (by guest blogger Dorian Davis)
Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a Republican, is popular in New York City. He won 744,757 votes on November 6, 2001. He won 179,797 votes in Manhattan. But the fascinating statistic about that election which is never trotted out is the fact that there were only 99,000 Republicans in Manhattan. Who voted for him? Democrats.
Why did Democrats support Mike Bloomberg? Maybe they supported him because he'd been a life-long Democrat prior to assuming the Republican nomination for Mayor. Maybe they supported him because he'd brilliantly announced prior to Election Day, 2001, "I am a liberal."
But, regardless of their reason for supporting him in 2001, Democrats have ample reason for supporting him in 2005: In his first term, he has advocated a twenty-five percent hike in the property tax, amnesty for illegal aliens, a smoking ban in bars and restaurants, and a position on gay marriage that is so incoherent it literally allows "anybody" to marry "anybody."
That's good news for Democrats. That's a rude awakening, though, for conservatives who voted Republican because we believed in low taxes and individual freedom, or because we believed in the Republican Party. Earth to the GOP: He is not a Republican!
I'm not surprised that conservatives regret allowing Mayor Bloomberg to climb onto the back of the Republican Party, and to ride this Party into Gracie Mansion, during the campaign of 2001. For now, at least, we can empathize with our mascot--the elephants that Hannibal rode over the Alps during the campaign of 218 B.C.: sure, they won the Punic War, but they got peanuts.
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