NYC note to Eric Adams: You’re not criticized because you’re ‘chocolate’ or ‘Jesus’
Mayor Adams says nobody likes him, and the polls suggest he’s close to correct.
An African-American, he blames race — but maybe it’s really because nobody likes a whiner.
Especially an unfocused whiner.
You know, like a mayor who flits like a firefly from one crisis to the next, a fellow who talks a good game but who — after 25 months in office — has yet to demonstrate that he’s truly up to what often is described as the second-toughest job in America.
Certainly Adams has yet to establish a core theme for his mayoralty.
He reacts — but there is scant coherence, and certainly no benchmarks against which to judge progress.
Rudy Giuliani was the self-styled crime fighter. Mike Bloomberg had wonky competence.
Even empty-suit Bill de Blasio embraced “progressivism” and that worked — at least until people caught on.
Eric Adams has . . . what?
People wonder — and worry.
Obviously that recent Quinnipiac University poll — Adams got a 28-58 percent negativity rating, the worst ever — is weighing heavily.
Sharks are circling — Andrew Cuomo and former city comptroller Scott Stringer among them — and that shouldn’t surprise. Blood in the water attracts them.
But the dismal numbers are not Adams’ fault — or so he says.
Hizzoner last week told a Brooklyn crowd that it’s because his administration is too “chocolate” — pointing to his virtually all-minority and mostly female corps of commissioners and deputies as the source of voter discontent.
“Have you ever seen this much chocolate lead in the city of New York?” Adam asked.
His cabinet, “is representative of the city. That’s why people are hating on me.”
He then compared himself to Jesus cleansing the temple, presumably of white males — but that’s a level of narcissism beyond mere newspaper analysis.
Regarding race, however, Hizzoner is full of beans on two levels.
New York City is, after all, a minority-majority municipality – and it has been for some time.
Why an all-minority mayoral cabinet would by itself generate the poll numbers plaguing Adams is a mystery.
And, perhaps more to the point, the only white male in a major elected leadership role across all of New York is state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.
Everybody else — the governor, state legislative leaders, New York’s attorney general, the chief judge of the Court of Appeals and the speaker of the New York City Council — is either of color, female, or both.
A racist, sexist electorate? It is to laugh.
Which brings us back to the mayor’s real problem: He’s all over the place — rhetorically, politically and in matters of public policy.
Consider the migrant crisis: One day he’s proclaiming apocalypse; the next he’s praising sanctuary cities, at least in principle.
He quite correctly criticizes the White House — then swiftly backs off.
He says the city can’t afford it all — true enough — but he’s given up on Washington and won’t really press Albany for cash.
There’s more — his public safety policies are ill-defined and largely ineffective — but why bother? The problem is clear.
Eric Adams is a reed in the wind.
New York has noticed.
Email: bob@bobmcmanus.nyc