With Ferrer Lagging, Political Class Asks How He Fell Behind

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

It might be too early to write a post-mortem for Fernando Ferrer’s mayoral campaign, but the city’s political class is already beginning to discuss what might be known as a pre-mortem.


Just seven short months ago, Mr. Ferrer was leading Mayor Bloomberg in the polls and declaring that he intended to unite Democrats across the nation with his mayoral campaign. Now, however, six days before New Yorkers head to the polls, Mr. Ferrer is trailing Mr. Bloomberg in public polls by a solid 30 points. He even is losing by about 20 points among Democrats.


The Ferrer campaign maintains that its job is far from over and it is still looking forward to Election Day on November 8.


“No time has been put into analyzing the what-ifs. We don’t have time for that. We’re being outspent by $90 million,” Mr. Ferrer’s campaign manager, Nick Baldick, said.


The Bloomberg campaign declined to comment, saying the campaign isn’t yet over.


While campaign staffers are maintaining the election is too close to call, many political consultants, professors, and politicians who have been following and participating in this year’s race are anticipating what could be a record-breaking victory for the incumbent. They say Mr. Bloomberg’s lead over his Democratic opponent might be larger than Mayor Giuliani’s 57% to 41% win over Ruth Messinger in 1997. Whatever the final results, though, everyone acknowledges that this year’s race has been an uphill battle for the Bronx native, even in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.


“The candidate had flaws that became manifest. The campaign had faults that became manifest, and he’s running against an individual who has a decent record and unlimited resources,” a professor of public affairs at Baruch College, Douglas Muzzio, said. “The playing field – there is no playing field. It’s Mike’s.”


Many observers of varying political stripes trace the Democratic nominee’s problems back to October 2001, when Mark Green beat him in the Democratic runoff after a divisive primary campaign. Mr. Ferrer went underground after his defeat, and his supporters made clear that they had no interest in helping the Democratic nominee. Even President Clinton’s last-minute intervention couldn’t bring Mr. Ferrer behind Mr. Green.


Mr. Ferrer’s intra-party rivalry didn’t end when Mr. Bloomberg defeated Mr. Green. In fact, the newly elected mayor, who changed his registration to Republican from Democrat right before his 2001 race, won a symbolic post-election boost just hours after the votes were counted when Mr. Ferrer joined him for a public breakfast at a Bronx diner.


Some Democrats are quietly speculating that “Mark Green Democrats,” still bitter about 2001, might have helped Mr. Bloomberg. Observers also say Mr. Ferrer’s failure to connect with voters – and collect campaign funds – between 2002 and the start of his campaign last year was a major blunder.


“He just sat there, on his $150,000 salary at the Drum Major Institute and he waited for the drums to beat for him,” the leader of the Liberal Party, Henry Stern, said. “He coasted for four years.He wasn’t in the streets. He could have gone to every neighborhood a dozen times in that era.”


According to campaign finance filings, while Mr. Bloomberg was tanking in public opinion polls halfway through his tenure at City Hall, Mr. Ferrer was raising paltry sums of campaign cash. He raised nothing at all in 2002, while other Democrats, including City Council Speaker Gifford Miller,were already raising millions. In 2003, Mr. Ferrer raised $94,685. In 2004, the year he left the Drum Major Institute and launched his campaign, he raised just shy of $2 million.


Mr. Ferrer’s problems only intensified when he jumped into the political fray.


In March, when asked at a gathering of the New York City Police Department Sergeant’s Benevolent Association if the shooting of Amadou Diallo was a crime or an accident, Mr. Ferrer said: “I don’t believe it was a crime. Do I believe there was an attempt by many to overindict? Sure?”


Mr. Ferrer, who was an outspoken critic of the shooting in 1999 when he was president of the Bronx, came under attack for his comments. Even this week, at the first mayoral debate, Mr. Ferrer had to fight off questions about his statement.


“It was always a drag on his campaign,” a political consultant who worked for a Ferrer primary challenger, C.Virginia Fields, Joseph Mercurio, said.


Democratic insiders said the comment also divided the party and turned off voters.


After the Diallo comment, Mr. Ferrer, who was always considered the Democratic frontrunner, was leading Mr. Bloomberg in the polls. But within a month, he had dropped from six points ahead to 13 points behind.


Around the same time, he announced his first major policy proposal, a stock transfer tax, which would force Wall Street to pay $1 billion a year in taxes to fund New York City public schools. The proposal, which would need Albany’s approval, was panned by Governor Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and the New York Stock Exchange. It was only the first of his proposals for new taxes.He also proposed a new property tax, which would cost New Yorkers another $1 billion over a decade.


Throughout the campaign Mr. Ferrer’s fundraising woes intensified.


“He never set up an operation to raise all the money they could in the matching funds category,” Mr. Mercurio said. “And that would have been a way to rev up voters support and show strength and also get the matching funds for the media buy.”


The candidate also made repeated, visible missteps.


The day Mr. Ferrer was scheduled to campaign with the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, the Bloomberg campaign told reporters that Mr.Ferrer wrote in his campaign Web log that he was “educated in public schools for most of my education,” when in fact he went to Catholic school for 12 years before attending a private university. The story made the front page of three newspapers. The next day, Mr. Ferrer campaigned in a public high school, even though Department of Education rules forbid candidates from setting foot inside a school within 60 days of an election.


Even a planned event with President Clinton turned into a nightmare when the sound system wasn’t working.


Although Mr. Ferrer has won endorsements from many of New York’s high-profile elected Democrats, most of them have remained friendly with the mayor – even appearing with Mr. Bloomberg at events. Politicians including Rep. Charles Rangel, Senator Clinton, and President Clinton have been spotted chortling with or heard praising the mayor since they came out in favor of Mr. Bloomberg.


Some Democratic insiders say the party’s bigwigs have only come out to campaign with Mr. Ferrer at all because they want to avoid the “blame game” that is expected to start in earnest on November 9.


With little cash and what analysts call an “incoherent”message Mr. Ferrer has struggled to compete in the ad war.


The former mayor, Ed Koch, called Mr. Ferrer’s recent negative ads “desperation.”


“In a way, I feel sorry for him, because I’ve been in losing campaigns where I was the candidate and I know how it feels,” he said.


But Mr. Koch, a Bloomberg supporter, said Mr. Ferrer’s problems are of his own making: “I know him very well, he’s a very likable person, but I just don’t think he substantively was able to convey to the public that he could do an equal or better job to Bloomberg.”


Mr. Stern, the former parks commissioner whose Liberal Party is backing Mr. Bloomberg, put it this way: “He had no program. There’s absolutely nothing. Whatever he said, it was prepared, like a sandwich is prepared for an occasion. There was no coherent frame of reference, except to attack Bloomberg from the left.”


He added: “There aren’t too many New Yorkers who are left of Bloomberg.”


While some of Mr. Ferrer’s Democratic supporters quietly say he has been a deeply flawed candidate, most say he has also been at a severe financial disadvantage as he has faced a self-financed billionaire, expected to spend about $100 million on this year’s campaign. Mr. Ferrer is expected to spend less than 10% of that.


“None of us is a perfect candidate, but I think there is no way to fairly assess this race without taking into account the stunning imbalance of resources,” a State Assembly member representing Manhattan, Eric Schneiderman, said.”It doesn’t feel to me like we’re engaged in a Democratic process where both sides have a chance to get their ideas out to the public.”


The Democratic nominee for Manhattan borough president, Scott Stringer, said: “I think it would have been very interesting to take Mike Bloomberg’s vision for the future and Freddy Ferrer’s vision for the future and have the electorate be able to judge it without the money advantage. It would have been a very, very different kind of campaign and it would have been actually a very good campaign for New York.”


Mr. Baldick, the Ferrer campaign manager, said, “I don’t think the problem is the message or the candidate. I think the problem is the sums of money that are being spent. I think the problem is getting through that level of obscene spending on the other side, but we’ll see.”


The New York Sun

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