Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Bloomberg III

Speculation is rampant about who may or may not populate Mayor Bloomberg's third and final administration. After eight years of a remarkably stable team, with few departures, it looks like the top echelons of city government are due for a big shake-up.

City Hall News has an ongoing feature about this called Gaming Out The Bloomberg III Cabinet. It has all the rumors and reports of rumors about who might be in, out, or left twisting in the wind.

My big question is this: assuming that most of the people in the administration who have served these last eight years want to stay, why would Bloomberg then get rid of any of them?

After all, wasn't the overturning of term limits and Bloomberg's expensively-acquired third term all about keeping him and the people around him in power -- because they've done such a great job? If he fires a lot of these people, are we really sure he can attract people of similar talent? They'll only have four years on the job, not really enough time to make the kind of big changes that those people in Bloomberg's first two terms had the chance to do. Why would anyone want to be second best? Term-limited from the time they take office? Stepping into such big shoes -- who wants to be in that situation?

Don't be surprised if Bloomberg's new administration is a profile in mediocrity.

We shall see. I hope to be wrong. But I wouldn't be surprised if Bloomberg III is a lot like Godfather III -- a miserable follow-up to two previous triumphs. I've said that overturning term limits was a bad idea precisely because it would lead to all sorts of unintended consequences -- and less than stellar cabinet might be one of them.

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