Bloomberg’s electoral green light

After an “occasionally ugly debate,” said Christopher Weber in AOL’s Political Machine, the New York City Council voted, 29-22, to allow Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and themselves, to seek a third term in office, scrapping voter-approved term limits. Most New Yorkers “are generally happy with the job the mayor’s done,” but they also think two terms is plenty. “What the hell is the point of term limits if a powerful politician can just work the machine”?

Well, there are two ways of looking at term limits, said the New York Post in an editorial. Political purists say politicians should never stick around too long, even if voters want them to. The other theory is that limits are a “potentially destructive impediment to keeping truly extraordinary public servants in office,” and Bloomberg fits that bill.

Now that Bloomberg’s received the green light to run again, said Clyde Haberman in The New York Times, he faces "a more onerous challenge: How to convince New Yorkers that they can believe a single thing he says.” His push for this maneuver is “a complete 180” on his previous statements. He may well win in 2009, but he’s lost his credibility.

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People are worked up, but “nobody panic,” said T. Sahara Meer in Time Out New York online. The City Council didn’t approve a law “obliterating the democratic process.” Bloomberg won the right “to ‘seek’ a third term”—voters still get to decide if he gets it.