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| Cuomo Is a Media Hero in the Pandemic. De Blasio Is a Scapegoat. | Cuomo Is a Media Hero in the Pandemic. De Blasio Is a Scapegoat. |
| (about 20 hours later) | |
| Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York called me this morning a little out of breath, feet pounding in the background, on his daily walk in Prospect Park. It’s the kind of stubbornly pointless personal ritual his critics in the media find incredibly annoying — couldn’t he just stay home at Gracie Mansion and clap for health care workers like his neighbors? | Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York called me this morning a little out of breath, feet pounding in the background, on his daily walk in Prospect Park. It’s the kind of stubbornly pointless personal ritual his critics in the media find incredibly annoying — couldn’t he just stay home at Gracie Mansion and clap for health care workers like his neighbors? |
| “I can’t put on a costume and pretend to be a different person than I am,” he told me. | “I can’t put on a costume and pretend to be a different person than I am,” he told me. |
| That has been part of Mr. de Blasio’s problem all along: He refuses to participate in media theater, the performative love for the city, that made mayors like Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani larger-than-life figures. In fact, his central political realization may be that he can govern while the declining tabloids sneer at him on his way to the gym — and he sneers back. | That has been part of Mr. de Blasio’s problem all along: He refuses to participate in media theater, the performative love for the city, that made mayors like Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani larger-than-life figures. In fact, his central political realization may be that he can govern while the declining tabloids sneer at him on his way to the gym — and he sneers back. |
| His disdain for much of the media helped him focus on the basic job he was hired to do with the support of black, working class voters: redistributing money from rich to poor, in the form of health and education spending. Against many predictions, he also maintained Mike Bloomberg’s safe, prosperous city. | His disdain for much of the media helped him focus on the basic job he was hired to do with the support of black, working class voters: redistributing money from rich to poor, in the form of health and education spending. Against many predictions, he also maintained Mike Bloomberg’s safe, prosperous city. |
| Of course, the mayor’s attitude also blinded him to legitimate media criticism on issues like public housing. But on Jan. 1, a fair assessment would have judged him a reasonably successful, if sometimes extremely irritating, mayor. | Of course, the mayor’s attitude also blinded him to legitimate media criticism on issues like public housing. But on Jan. 1, a fair assessment would have judged him a reasonably successful, if sometimes extremely irritating, mayor. |
| But now, at a moment when that intangible, direct-to-camera quality of public leadership has turned Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York into a national hero, Mr. de Blasio is filling a different role: Punching bag. The New York Post accuses him of “pushing partisan hysteria,” while a Daily News op-ed lists his “coronavirus failures.” A widely shared New York magazine article covered his “worst week ever.” Meghan McCain of ABC’s “The View” recently revealed that she’d disliked him ever since he fatally wounded a groundhog in 2014. | But now, at a moment when that intangible, direct-to-camera quality of public leadership has turned Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York into a national hero, Mr. de Blasio is filling a different role: Punching bag. The New York Post accuses him of “pushing partisan hysteria,” while a Daily News op-ed lists his “coronavirus failures.” A widely shared New York magazine article covered his “worst week ever.” Meghan McCain of ABC’s “The View” recently revealed that she’d disliked him ever since he fatally wounded a groundhog in 2014. |
| When New Yorkers, and when writers, need to shift their gaze from the federal government’s deadly failures, Mr. de Blasio is close at hand. His early news conferences were stressed and rambling — relatable, in a way. We are all stressed and rambling. But he didn’t project the soothing strength that has made Mr. Cuomo’s appearances into reassuring fireside chats for an uneasy nation. A sympathetic Cuomo aide said he thought Mr. de Blasio had been getting a bit of a bad rap on his performance because of the “hair on fire” quality of his early response to the crisis. | When New Yorkers, and when writers, need to shift their gaze from the federal government’s deadly failures, Mr. de Blasio is close at hand. His early news conferences were stressed and rambling — relatable, in a way. We are all stressed and rambling. But he didn’t project the soothing strength that has made Mr. Cuomo’s appearances into reassuring fireside chats for an uneasy nation. A sympathetic Cuomo aide said he thought Mr. de Blasio had been getting a bit of a bad rap on his performance because of the “hair on fire” quality of his early response to the crisis. |
| “I think it’s not surprising the media and the public discourse gravitates toward that big emotional messaging,” Mr. de Blasio said. His own goal, he said, has been “to set up a message of scrupulous blunt truth,” call attention to heroic New Yorkers, and at times call out President Trump in the hopes of getting more supplies flowing. | “I think it’s not surprising the media and the public discourse gravitates toward that big emotional messaging,” Mr. de Blasio said. His own goal, he said, has been “to set up a message of scrupulous blunt truth,” call attention to heroic New Yorkers, and at times call out President Trump in the hopes of getting more supplies flowing. |
| “I’ve had a very, very substantial number of people come to me and say, ‘You’ve been steady, you’ve been calm, you’ve been purposeful,’” he said. | “I’ve had a very, very substantial number of people come to me and say, ‘You’ve been steady, you’ve been calm, you’ve been purposeful,’” he said. |
| The contrast between Mr. Cuomo’s and Mr. de Blasio’s public appearances has been striking. But a look at the details of their actions to confront the pandemic, well outlined by Politico, makes the contrast less clear. Almost everyone was dangerously late to the seriousness of the crisis. The federal agencies whose job it was to prepare and test failed grievously. Only a handful of officials, notably Mayor London Breed of San Francisco, were truly ahead of the curve. | The contrast between Mr. Cuomo’s and Mr. de Blasio’s public appearances has been striking. But a look at the details of their actions to confront the pandemic, well outlined by Politico, makes the contrast less clear. Almost everyone was dangerously late to the seriousness of the crisis. The federal agencies whose job it was to prepare and test failed grievously. Only a handful of officials, notably Mayor London Breed of San Francisco, were truly ahead of the curve. |
| And Mr. de Blasio? He was somewhere in the middle, like most of the media that is now keeping score. His painfully public three-day Hamlet act over closing schools ended with Mr. Cuomo announcing that they’d be closed just minutes before Mr. de Blasio’s planned announcement — both of them days behind some other school systems around the country. Ms. Breed had her city “shelter in place” March 16; Mr. de Blasio aired that idea March 17, to be immediately rebuked by Cuomo, who then put in a similar statewide order four days later. On Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo overrode the mayor to close playgrounds. The two have tiptoed around one another, and on Tuesday held news conferences at the same hospital ship, an hour apart. | |
| Mr. de Blasio told me his hesitation to shut schools and, effectively, the city was focused on the city as he saw it. “The vast majority of New Yorkers are working-class people, are lower income folks, who have no option but to stand and fight,” he said. “They can’t go any place else, they don’t have an alternative to child care, they don’t have a nanny.” | Mr. de Blasio told me his hesitation to shut schools and, effectively, the city was focused on the city as he saw it. “The vast majority of New Yorkers are working-class people, are lower income folks, who have no option but to stand and fight,” he said. “They can’t go any place else, they don’t have an alternative to child care, they don’t have a nanny.” |
| And he blamed the media for overlooking those groups to focus on the more affluent classes. “Our discourse is inherently about a small subset of our people.” | And he blamed the media for overlooking those groups to focus on the more affluent classes. “Our discourse is inherently about a small subset of our people.” |
| The problem with his argument, of course, is that the poor get sick, too. People close to Mr. de Blasio say he erred in taking a reflexively ideological approach to a fast-moving health crisis. One former aide worried that the mayor filtered the pandemic through “a social justice lens’’ that does not work for this moment. | The problem with his argument, of course, is that the poor get sick, too. People close to Mr. de Blasio say he erred in taking a reflexively ideological approach to a fast-moving health crisis. One former aide worried that the mayor filtered the pandemic through “a social justice lens’’ that does not work for this moment. |
| Mr. de Blasio rejects the criticism that he let his preoccupation with inequality overwhelm his more universal obligations. But he says the emerging story of the crisis will be about the old inequalities as much as about the new disease. The city has released largely useless data about where the coronavirus is hitting hardest. New data is nearly ready, he said, and when it’s released later this week, it will show that clearly. | Mr. de Blasio rejects the criticism that he let his preoccupation with inequality overwhelm his more universal obligations. But he says the emerging story of the crisis will be about the old inequalities as much as about the new disease. The city has released largely useless data about where the coronavirus is hitting hardest. New data is nearly ready, he said, and when it’s released later this week, it will show that clearly. |
| “We’re going to be able to put out much more true data that will show this tracking with the health disparities that are historically known,” he said. “Coronavirus is equal opportunity, and we have to save and protect everyone — but it’s increasingly clear where we’re losing lots of people and how it connects back to historic disparities.” | “We’re going to be able to put out much more true data that will show this tracking with the health disparities that are historically known,” he said. “Coronavirus is equal opportunity, and we have to save and protect everyone — but it’s increasingly clear where we’re losing lots of people and how it connects back to historic disparities.” |
| Mr. de Blasio’s hair has cooled off as the briefings have gone on; he continues to drive his aides crazy by refusing to trust information, as The New York Times’ Jeffery C. Mays and Joseph Goldstein reported, until he has “processed it himself.” He’s scrambling like other executives to get supplies for the city; he was on the phone Monday, he said, with the chief executive of a Swedish ventilator company, pleading New York’s case. He’s now under fire from the right for releasing inmates from city jails. | Mr. de Blasio’s hair has cooled off as the briefings have gone on; he continues to drive his aides crazy by refusing to trust information, as The New York Times’ Jeffery C. Mays and Joseph Goldstein reported, until he has “processed it himself.” He’s scrambling like other executives to get supplies for the city; he was on the phone Monday, he said, with the chief executive of a Swedish ventilator company, pleading New York’s case. He’s now under fire from the right for releasing inmates from city jails. |
| But outside the Manhattan bubble, city’s perceptions vary widely. A recent Siena Poll said 61 percent of New Yorkers approved of his handling of the crisis, about halfway in between ratings for Mr. Trump and Mr. Cuomo. Among black New Yorkers, however, 84 percent approved, as did 71 percent of people making less than $50,000 a year. | But outside the Manhattan bubble, city’s perceptions vary widely. A recent Siena Poll said 61 percent of New Yorkers approved of his handling of the crisis, about halfway in between ratings for Mr. Trump and Mr. Cuomo. Among black New Yorkers, however, 84 percent approved, as did 71 percent of people making less than $50,000 a year. |
| As the crisis wears on and New Yorkers and Americans show signs of wanting to root for their leaders, not just to punch them, Mr. de Blasio has an opportunity to be judged on his stated priorities: to blunt what is likely to be a predictably, vastly disproportionate impact of this crisis on poor people who are more likely to have underlying conditions, from diabetes to heart disease, that make them vulnerable. | As the crisis wears on and New Yorkers and Americans show signs of wanting to root for their leaders, not just to punch them, Mr. de Blasio has an opportunity to be judged on his stated priorities: to blunt what is likely to be a predictably, vastly disproportionate impact of this crisis on poor people who are more likely to have underlying conditions, from diabetes to heart disease, that make them vulnerable. |
| “I increasingly see that the greatest threat is to people who have the least and the hospitals that have the least,” he said. | “I increasingly see that the greatest threat is to people who have the least and the hospitals that have the least,” he said. |