The following is a quote from David Seifman's New York Post column of this morning:

Mayor Bloomberg's campaign crew's excuses for his shockingly close 4.6 percentage-point win over Bill Thompson go something like this:

* No matter that we consistently told everyone publicly he was leading by double digits, we knew that it was going to be very close. We did this to hurt Thompson's fund-raising and to convince as many Democrats as we could to not go anywhere near him.

 So it really comes down to the fact that Bloomberg's extravagantly paid campaign staff knew how close the race was but spent money beyond all of our wildest imaginations and put out a lie.  

Just as the team set out to distort Thompson's record, so did the team even distort the polls.  One has to wonder why the pollsters went along with Wolfson and Sheeky and remained silent during the distortions.  I will forever be convinced that the polls made a tremendous difference in this race.  It allowed Democrats to be either mildly in support of Thompson or outright endorse Bloomberg.  

The next question that really needs to be answered is why would a billionaire, who in his last election noted that his Plan B was better than his opponent's Plan A, allow himself to be so utterly humiliated by changing the term limits law and running for a third term?

His wealth had already increased exponentially since becoming Mayor and creating name recognition that he had otherwise failed to create through his media conglomerate.  The only one who can answer this question is Mike himself.  If the reports were correct at the outset, this is a situation in which his senior staff was much smarter than the candidate.  They recognized the damage he would do to his credibility in a way that he was blind to.  Mike, tell us what you were thinking.

Then there is Bill Thompson, the perennial nice guy, and I do believe what they say about nice guys in politics.

Adam Lisberg in his Daily News column notes all those who were not there for him during the election, some of whom even managed to pop up onto the stage the night of the upset loss.

Sure Mike's money and the polls made it easy for people to stay away.  But, I say it was more than that.

Bill Thompson failed to distinguish himself as Controller for almost eight years.  No one in the City could name one thing for which he stood.  All these years later I still remember that Hevesi refused to allow pulbic hospitals to be privatized and would not allow Giuliani to sell off the City's watershed.  Yet, I cannot think of one thing connected to Thompson's tenure.

I recognize that it is difficult for the public to connect with a Controller.  After all, probably the City's greatest Controller, Harrison J. Goldin, failed to even break double digits when he ran in the Democratic primary for Mayor.  But that is the reason that Thompson, who knew he wanted to grab the Mayoralty, needed to work harder and create a political brand.

Bill did a fine job harnessing the populace's anger about Mike during the last four months of the campaign.  Oh, had he only done for himself for seven years what he was able to do against Mike in four months, he woiuld probably be Mayor today.

Finally, there is the media.  They were the mighty enablers.  They allowed Mike and his team to dupe the City into making us all think that the race was a lock.  They hammered Thomspon at every turn.  The most telling moment of all came last Tuesday evening when at 9:45 the paper of record, The New York Times, headlined "Bloomberg Wins Decisive Victory" on its website.  Thank heavens for the web, it allowed the Times to change the headline fifteen minutes later when NBC recalled its earlier projection that Bloomberg had won.  

These final moments speak legions about the uphill battle that Thompson faced during his campaign and it should inform the people of our City never to trust the Times again.