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'Fiasco': The short life and ignominious death of de Blasio's national progressive agenda
Politico:Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first major attempt to be a national player was a monthslong comedy of errors involving City Hall staffers and some of the biggest political operatives in New York, according to thousands of pages of emails — many of them previously undisclosed — reviewed by POLITICO.
De Blasio’s Progressive Agenda nonprofit was ostensibly designed to champion issues the mayor held dear — income inequality, voter enfranchisement, education — with de Blasio as the central force behind the “movement.”
But the more-than-$860,000 effort yielded little in the end — no public debates, a couple of events including one that failed spectacularly, and no political upside for a mayor singularly obsessed with becoming a national liberal leader.
What it did yield were reams of emails that paint a portrait of de Blasio as a micromanager who allowed confusion and frustration to reign among his staff and stable of advisers. He tasked those advisers with the often-conflicting jobs of advancing the mayor’s national statute while also running the country’s largest city during a series of crises that included a burgeoning feud with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a losing regulatory battle with Uber and growing alarm about the city’s increasing homeless population, which had ballooned to roughly 60,000 people.
In September 2015, de Blasio sent his staff an urgent email. He wanted to leave town on behalf of his Progressive Agenda. He just needed to concoct a New York City-related rationale for the trip.
De Blasio’s Progressive Agenda nonprofit was ostensibly designed to champion issues the mayor held dear — income inequality, voter enfranchisement, education — with de Blasio as the central force behind the “movement.”
But the more-than-$860,000 effort yielded little in the end — no public debates, a couple of events including one that failed spectacularly, and no political upside for a mayor singularly obsessed with becoming a national liberal leader.
What it did yield were reams of emails that paint a portrait of de Blasio as a micromanager who allowed confusion and frustration to reign among his staff and stable of advisers. He tasked those advisers with the often-conflicting jobs of advancing the mayor’s national statute while also running the country’s largest city during a series of crises that included a burgeoning feud with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a losing regulatory battle with Uber and growing alarm about the city’s increasing homeless population, which had ballooned to roughly 60,000 people.
In September 2015, de Blasio sent his staff an urgent email. He wanted to leave town on behalf of his Progressive Agenda. He just needed to concoct a New York City-related rationale for the trip.
There are a lot of people I know in NYC who are not happy with the Mayor's local performance, and who see his national ambition as a huge distraction to the job he should be doing here. He'll be term-limited out in another year. He can relaunch his campaign then.
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