The Post reported this morning that controversial New York City Councilman Charles Barron of Brooklyn will drop out of the race for mayor, more than a year after first declaring his candidacy.
This is too bad. Barron- whether he’s agitating for slavery reparations, inviting Zimbabwe’s fascist president Robert Mugabe to receptions at city hall, or proclaiming that “I want to go up to the closest white person and say, 'You can't understand this, it's a black thing,' and then slap him, just for my mental health," is far and away the craziest politician in New York- and that’s not an easy title to attain. So I was hoping he’d stay in the race, if only to lend it some much-needed entertainment.
Still though: I maintain that the New York mayoral race in 2001 was one of the most fascinating elections in American political history. You had four about-to-be-term-limited Democrats going for their party’s nomination, Republican-in-name-only Michael Bloomberg bypassing that primary to run on the other side, Freddy Ferrer’s racially-charged feud with Mark Green that sabotaged Green’s GOTV operation, Sean Delonas’ epic series of “Ferrer-kisses-Sharpton’s-ass” cartoons in the Post, September 11 happening right on primary day and completely realigning the mayoral race along with everything else, Rudy's attempts at a term extension, Green’s infamous “kill it, kill it” ad, and finally Bloomberg’s surprise come-from-behind victory.
This election had it all- and because of 9/11, no one remembers a thing about it. I wish someone would write a book about that race- maybe I will.
Posted by Stephen Silver at February 9, 2005 09:43 PM