New York City Takes Hard-Left Turn

At WSJ, "Election of Bill de Blasio as Mayor Could Be Test of Revival of Liberalism in American Political Life":

For the past 12 years, the nation's largest city has been run by one of the country's wealthiest corporate titans, a self-declared iconoclast untethered to either party.

On Tuesday, New York overwhelmingly elected an unabashed liberal activist and political strategist who is sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement and once spent time in Nicaragua supporting the Sandinistas.

Political analysts say the election of Democrat Bill de Blasio —who ran on a platform of raising taxes on the wealthy to fund education programs, cracking down on aggressive police tactics known as stop-and-frisk and creating a more inclusive, collaborative government—could become the biggest test yet of a recent revival of liberalism in American political life that is occurring in urban areas.

The test will have many pundits keeping a close eye on the new mayor's many challenges, including the delicate task of appeasing business leaders used to dealing with one of their own, and of resolving the city's biggest showdown with unions in a half century. "Bill [will be] the most liberal big-city mayor in America today and a lot of people are going to be watching it: Can he pull it off?" said Harold Ickes, a mentor to Mr. de Blasio and former White House deputy chief of staff for Bill Clinton.

In 2000, Republicans led five of the nation's largest dozen cities. By the end of 2012, they no longer led any. In Tuesday's election, the candidate favored in opinion polls to be Seattle's new mayor, Ed Murray, appealed to voters partly by citing his role in passing the largest tax increase in Washington state's history to fund transportation improvements. In Boston, State Rep. Martin Walsh was elected after squaring off against another progressive Democrat to succeed Thomas Menino, a Democrat who built strong relationships with the city's business community.

Liberals are emboldened, said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report. He said that after decades of feeling that Democrats had to move to the center to be elected, "we're seeing more and more in the Democratic Party a sense of confidence and outspokenness among progressives."

But observers say that with momentum can come some obvious risks, including overstepping mandates and stepping out of the mainstream. "They could go too far left, because there's a tolerance for moderation, not necessarily for liberalism," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "If they show themselves to be incompetent then they'll pay a price." Mr. de Blasio has said he has made, and will make, an effort to reach out to all sides.

The shift hardly means liberals are taking over. Conservatives hold safe seats in the House of Representatives, and the rise of liberalism in some places reflects increased partisanship on both ends of the political spectrum. In 1982, 344 members of the House were considered to have some ideological overlap with the opposing party. In 2012, there were 13 such members, according to an analysis of voting data by National Journal.

In New York, Mr. de Blasio, 52 years old, will be the first Democrat to be mayor in 20 years. "Make no mistake," Mr. de Blasio said in his acceptance speech Tuesday night. "The people of this city have chosen a progressive path."

The victory could "make other Democrats think of this 'tale of two cities' theme as a possible driver of their campaigns in 2014," said Jeffrey M. Berry, a political-science professor at Tufts University.

The question for critics is whether Mr. de Blasio has enough experience running a large city, and can run it in an effective manner. As the city's public advocate, a government watchdog, Mr. de Blasio managed a staff of 40 people with an annual budget of $2.3 million. New York City employs around 300,000 people with an annual operating budget of $69.9 billion.

"I have no trouble praising de Blasio's political skills," said Fred Siegel, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank that focuses on economic choice. "It's his governing that worries me."

In response, Mr. de Blasio has said that he has learned under some of the most skilled leaders in the Democratic Party, including Mr. Ickes and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. They taught him "to always to check reality against your presumptions," he said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal.

New Yorkers rejected several of Mr. de Blasio's positions in a poll last month, despite their overwhelming support of his candidacy. A majority of voters said they wanted to retain Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. (Mr. de Blasio promised to remove him, which the city's mayor can do.) They wanted more charter schools. (Mr. de Blasio has expressed skepticism.) And nearly half of voters support the stop-and-frisk tactic used by police officers. (Mr. de Blasio's criticism of the practice is one of his central platforms.)

More, "De Blasio Elected Next New York City Mayor in Landslide: First Democrat to Win City Hall Since David Dinkins in 1989."