Lately, people have been imagining what a New York City under Hillary Clinton’s watch would look like. Newsmax, a conservative outlet, reported that some Democrats are courting Clinton to run against Mayor Bill de Blasio in this year’s election and deny him a second term.
“The question has gained momentum in the weeks since Mrs. Clinton lost to Mr. Trump, a Republican. It began quietly at first, then grew louder among the conservative media outlets and pundits who hold her and Mr. de Blasio in disdain,” reported The New York Times.
The suggestion first appeared on a right-wing website, where it was reported that rumors “are flying around that Hillary Clinton might be considering running for mayor of New York City.” A Fox Business Network commentator spoke about it on air. It has been discussed in Washington D.C. too.
“I heard it three times in the two days I was on the Hill,” said Bradley Tusk, a former top aide to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
We’re all wondering what Mrs. Clinton is going to do next. “Whether that’s a university presidency, the head of some women’s and children’s group, something international, or even mayor of New York,” said Alan Patricof, a donor and longtime friend of the Clintons.
During the primary season, Mrs. Clinton struggled to use a MetroCard, while her opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders, drew 27,000 people in Washington Square Park for a speech. (Mr. Sanders was under the impression that the subway system still used tokens.) In the end, Clinton beat Sanders by 12.2 percent. In the presidential election, 79 percent of New Yorkers voted for her over Trump.
Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, live in Upstate New York, in the Westchester County hamlet of Chappaqua. The law requires a candidate only become a New York City resident by Election Day. Chances are she will not be running, however. Mr. Tusk continued, “The reality is that she’s not going to and all it does is further delay the thinking and plans of people who actually could run and win.”
The Times also reported, “People close to Mrs. Clinton said that she had not given much thought to what she would do next, but that she was almost certainly not interested in being mayor. They cited Mr. Bloomberg’s suggestion, before the 2013 mayoral race, that she run to succeed him as mayor. It was an idea, they said, that she politely, but promptly, dismissed.”
“The best platform to change the world is the White House,” said Stu Loeser, a former aide to Mr. Bloomberg. “And a pretty close second is running one of the three biggest cities in the United States.”
Mr. Loeser recalled a conversation between Mr. Bloomberg and President Obama at a New York City diner in 2007. “He said that if he doesn’t win the presidency, he’s going to strongly consider running for mayor of Chicago,” Mr. Loeser said.
Hillary Clinton shattered the glass ceiling of becoming the first female presidential candidate nominated by a major party in the U.S., but failed to become the first female president. Here’s another glass ceiling she could shatter: New York has not yet had a female mayor.
Frank Bruni, a columnist for The New York Times, imagined what Clinton’s mayorship would look like. “City building inspectors start to show up daily at Trump Tower, where they find a wobbly beam here, a missing smoke detector there, outdated wiring all over the place. City health inspectors fan out through Trump’s hotels, writing citations for clogged drains in the kitchens and expired milk in the minibars. […] When foreign dignitaries cycle through the United Nations, they make sure to drop by City Hall, especially because she was once the country’s secretary of state. She winds up meeting with some of them more often than Trump does. […] Within a few months of her inauguration, the prevalence of his name on high-rises in Manhattan would pale next to the omnipresence of her face on billboards in all five boroughs. […] And in the city’s libraries, ‘The Art of the Deal’ would be impossible to find, while upfront, on vivid display, there’d be copies galore of ‘It Takes a Village’ and ‘Hard Choices’,” he wrote.
Although people close to Mrs. Clinton have said she’s not likely to run for mayor, it can be noted that she began her political career in another New York office she swore she was not interested in: senator.
