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The New York Times/ - Politics, Seg, 02 de Abril de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)
Mayoral Hopeful’s Slow Start Has Some
Asking if His Heart Is in It
William C. Thompson Jr. has heard all the questions.
Is he really running for mayor next year? Can he raise
enough money to compete in a crowded primary?
Does he have the burning desire that it takes to mount
an aggressive campaign?
The answer to all of these, Mr. Thompson says, is yes.
But as he ramps up his campaign, his first task is
persuading skeptics that he is really in it.
Mr. Thompson, a former comptroller who was the
Democratic nominee for mayor in 2009, enters the
2013 race with considerable advantages. He ran
strongly in the 2009 election, surprising many political
experts by coming within five percentage points of
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. As the only
African-American candidate, and possibly the only
minority candidate, in the probable 2013 field, Mr.
Thompson is also in a unique position to benefit from
the growing majority of black, Hispanic and
Asian-American voters in the city.
Despite these advantages, though, Mr. Thompson is
off to a slow start. By mid-January, he had raised just
$889,241, less than half what each of his expected
major rivals for the Democratic nomination had raised.
And his low-key approach to campaigning has left
many wondering if he can compete against a handful
of extremely ambitious politicians.
“Does he today have the same passion to run and to
lead the city that he had when he was running against
Bloomberg?” asked the Rev. A. R. Bernard, who leads
Christian Cultural Center, a church in Brooklyn with
36,000 members. “I don’t know if the fire’s there or
not.”
Others were more blunt.
“If he wants to show that he’s a serious candidate, he
has to step up his visibility first,” Susan Del Percio, a
Republican political consultant, said. She added,
“Right now he does not look like a serious candidate
— he looks like someone who wants to keep the door
open for a possible run.”
In an interview, Mr. Thompson attributed the questions
about his candidacy partly to the fact that he was not
currently an officeholder, and therefore was not “front
and center” in the public eye. He also suggested that it
benefited his opponents to stir such doubts.
“There were a number of people who — their path to
victory couldn’t have me in the discussion, so it was
always easier to say, ‘Bill’s not running,’ ” he said.
But he expressed confidence in his ability to bring
together a multiethnic coalition of voters, even saying
that he thought he could get to 40 percent in the
primary and avoid a runoff.
And while he acknowledged that he had some
catching up to do in fund-raising, he said he was not
worried about raising enough to hit the spending limit
in the primary, which is roughly $6.7 million for
candidates participating in the public financing
system.
“I’m confident that I’m going to be able to raise the
money that’s necessary to run a strong campaign and
to max out,” he said.
For the last two years, Mr. Thompson has been
working at the municipal finance firm Siebert Brandford
Shank & Company and serving as chairman of the
Battery Park City Authority.
Mr. Thompson said he had been “reorganizing” his life.
A member of his finance committee, Betsy Gotbaum,
who is a former public advocate, said of his recent
absence from politics, “I think taking the year off was
important for him,” even though she said it had
contributed to the uncertainty about his intentions.
Mr. Thompson has been getting out more recently: to
events held by business groups and labor unions. He
was in Albany for the annual conference of the New
York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian
Legislative Caucus, as well as for Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo’s Black History Month celebration. He was also
the only mayoral candidate at Mr. Cuomo’s New York
City Super Bowl party the week before.
He plans to announce on Monday that he is rehiring
two former members of his 2009 campaign staff: Geoff
Garin, a pollster; and Doc Sweitzer, a media
consultant.
But at times he still does not seem to be in active
campaign mode. On a recent Sunday, for example, he
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