Bill Thompson

Bill Thompson Needs To Bow Out Of The Mayor's Race

In 2009, the Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson telephoned in a campaign for mayor against the Republican candidate Mike Bloomberg. Despite Mayor Bloomberg's very high negatives due to the sleazy extension of term limits, and other scandals such as the slush fund in the city budget, unpopular zone-busting real estate development projects, and simmering racial tensions with the NYPD, Mr. Thompson refused to really challenge or confront Mayor Bloomberg. Why was that ?

If we look back, all we have to do is to follow the money.

Voters had no idea how much Mayor Mike Bloomberg had become intertwined in the financial affairs of Bill Thompson's wife.

From a 2009 article in The New York Times :

One reason for her low profile might be that as president of the Museum for African Art, which is building its first permanent quarters, in Harlem, since its creation 26 years ago, Mrs. Thompson may have chosen not to get too involved in politics so as not to antagonize some of the museum’s donors, which include Mr. Bloomberg. (From the Sidelines, Was Elsie McCabe Thompson Trying to Thwart Support For Her Husband’s Quest to Be Mayor ?)

The Bloomberg Connection With Elsie McCabe Thompson

But about one year later, The New York Times published another article on Ms. Thompson, but that article contained no reference to any apparent conflicts of interest created by the receipt by Ms. Thompson of donations from Mayor Bloomberg. (Pulling Museum Mile Uptown)

According to a Village Voice investigation, Mayor Bloomberg had fluffed up Ms. Thompson's museum by the tune of several tens of millions of dollars.

"The mayor has directed or triggered between $43 million and $51 million in public and personal subsidies into a museum project led by Thompson's current wife and longtime companion, Elsie McCabe-Thompson, dumping $2 million of additional city funding into it as late as September 30[, 2009], in the middle of the mayoral campaign." (Bloomberg and Thompson: The (Really) Odd Couple)

A portrait is now emerging of Bill Thompson's true role in the 2013 mayoral campaign. Does his campaign solely exist to jam the voter turn-out for some of the Democratic Party nomination candidates, especially John Liu or Bill de Blasio ? One person recently posted the sole comment on Wayne Barrett's 2010 Village Voice investigation :

BILL THOMPSON - Who is this guy really but a Bloomberg ally and Wall Street lobbyist whose goal is to insure that a DeBlasio or someone else's candidacy does not catch fire and threaten the existing social order for Crony Capitalists who have already chosen Quinn. Thompson is here to create a wedge between Quinn and DeBlasio in an attempt to prevent him from catching fire and moving past Quinn. If nothing else is clear, Thompson's ploy is to go along with the program. A vote for Thompson instead of DeBlasio is a vote for Christine Quinn. (Christopher London)

For the fact that Mr. Thompson cannot prove that he is neither acting as a puppet of Mayor Bloomberg nor as a vote thwarter for other Democratic mayoral candidates, Mr. Thompson must end his campaign for mayor.