“Thank God we at least have the MARATHON to look forward to!”
Yesterday CNN and MSNBC crowed the news that America’s most prominent Nanny-State liberal endorsed President Obama. Everyone surprised by that news could fit in a single booth at your local Friendly’s, with enough room left for Michael Moore.
I said yesterday that, if the Bloomberg endorsement has any impact (which I doubted), it would be slightly negative for President Obama. Normal people in New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado are not fans of Mayor “No Soda For You!” He symbolizes the annoying, petty and overreaching government they hate.
But I may have underestimated Bloomberg’s potential negative impact. By wrapping himself around the Obama candidacy, he’s also wrapped the Hurricane Sandy story even closer to Obama. And that’s not good.
The long gas lines dominating the cable news have nothing to do with Obama’s energy policy, but they certainly bring topics like the Keystone pipeline and “energy prices will necessarily skyrocket” to mind.
Watching people left stranded at their demolished homes and in flooded communities, beyond the reach of the (supposedly) all-powerful government is what media gurus call “lousy optics.” Disorder, disarray, despair—these do not generate positive feeling about people in power.
“While NYC emergency workers are still recovering bodies, I’m going to lecture you on global warming…”
Do I think these images will impact the election in a meaningful way beyond New York/New Jersey? No. But there is one part of the story that might—and it’s Michael Bloomberg himself.
He is an arrogant, wrong-headed as-swi-pe, and people are finding out just big an as-swi-pe as they watch Bloomberg direct government resources away from flooded residents and to…the New York City Marathon.
Fresh off his "climate disruption"-driven endorsement of President Obama, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has chosen to divert critical food supplies and power generators from desperate residents of Staten Island to Sunday’s New York City Marathon
You’ll be stunned to learn that the people of the hardest-hit parts of NYC aren’t exactly thrilled.
Even as the city and feds rushed food, water and generators to the borough, residents and their elected officials fumed that Staten Island was being prepped as the starting line for Sunday’s New York City Marathon, even as the rest of the island is left to deal with the aftershocks of the mega-storm.
"The notion of diverting even one police officer, one first responder, one asset away from this carnage is beyond irrational,” Councilman James Oddo told the Daily News. Earlier, Oddo called the idea of hosting the marathon as “idiotic” on his Facebook page.
Runners will show up at the starting line, but will break off en masse at different points of the city to deliver supplies to places hardest hit and without power. This will mean departing from the race, to head to various buildings, running up and down stairs delivering water and canned goods, etc. Runners will show up to the marathon, as scheduled. Runners who want to help should post the words, “I’M HERE TO HELP!” somewhere on their bodies.
Sunday, America is going to watch a bunch of skinny, self-righteous, left-leaning joggers snatching bottles of water from the hands of Bloomberg’s NYC marathon crew—while families in Staten Island who have no power OR water sit amid the wreckage of their homes, still waiting for help.
All thanks to Mike Bloomberg. You want him, Obots? You can have him.
Radio talk show host, columnist for the Boston Herald, stand-up comic and former GOP political consultant.