The Real Reason De Blasio is in Trouble

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

Walter Russell Mead

Dec. 23 2014

 

While supporters—and a compliant press—like to highlight the size of Bill de Blasio’s election victory in New York’s mayoral race in 2013 (at 73%), they often forget that turnout was a record low of 24%. De Blasio was elected with the support of about 18% of the city’s registered voters—less than 10% of the total population of the city.

 

It’s with this kind of background that you should keep in mind when parsing pieces like this one in Politico, which tries to puzzle out “what went wrong”:

 

(Snip)

 

If de Blasio ever had a mandate, it was a mandate for caution, not a mandate for sweeping change. It was a mandate to build your support through some incremental changes so that you’ll have a more solid backing in a second term. But de Blasio and the excited progressives around him read it differently.

 

(Snip)