It’s been nearly a week since mayoral candidates Freddy Ferrer and Tom Ognibene debated an empty podium at the Apollo Theater, and Democrat Ferrer’s campaign has yet to see the anticipated boom.
One reason, plainly, is that Mayor Bloomberg caught a major political break when last week’s terrorist threat announcement – just hours before the debate – dominated the news cycles all weekend. (Democrats yesterday angrily charged the alert was issued only to divert attention from the debate.) Still, Bloomberg did largely fumble his refusal to take part in the three-way debate in Harlem. But then Ferrer and his camp fumbled in how they tried to use this gift horse: They made it racial – and made Al Sharpton the chief spokesman of that effort.
Which is why Ferrer, and not Bloomberg, may wind up suffering the collateral damage from this episode. Because the blatantly racial baiting – of what otherwise would have been a legitimate criticism of Bloomberg’s refusal to attend any more than two debates (and those just days before the election) – served to remind voters why they rejected Ferrer four years ago.
Back then, his mayoral campaign was little more than a blatant ethnic appeal, reminding Hispanics that he is “one of us” and implying strongly that no white candidate could properly appreciate minority concerns. Indeed, it seemed Ferrer was trying to cast every issue in racial terms.
And that’s what happened with the debate at the Apollo.
It’s not as if Ferrer had to stretch to make this an issue: Bloomberg clearly mishandled his refusal to take part in the debate, offering an ever-changing litany of excuses, none of which held much water.
Ferrer didn’t even manage to point out that, back in 2001, it was Bloomberg who was demanding a series of debates and Democrat Mark Green who replied imperiously that he would only take part in two such sessions, because that was all Bloomberg was “legally entitled to.”
Instead, with Sharpton leading the charge, the Democrats called Bloomberg’s refusal to take part in a debate in Harlem a racial decision.
“We have been racially profiled out of the debate process in this election,” declared Sharpton in a burst of characteristically nonsensical bombast. Refusing to stand onstage at the Apollo is an “obvious insult to African-American voters,” he said, adding: “When you say no to the Apollo, you’re saying no to all black New York.”
Though Ferrer never went quite that far in his public pronouncements, he signed on to Sharpton’s rhetoric, featuring Rev. Al in a radio ad that slammed Bloomberg for refusing to “come to our neighborhood and answer our questions.”
Of course, Bloomberg hasn’t been saying no – to Harlem in general, or to the Apollo in particular.
As the mayor noted, he’s taken part in activities and events in the community over 70 times since taking office. Black leaders – Sharpton included – have hailed his eagerness to reach out to them over the past four years.
Which likely explains why, in the midst of the Sharpton-Ferrer onslaught, Rep. Charles Rangel and Comptroller Bill Thompson made a point of appearing with the mayor at City Hall to announce a new program for minority construction contractors.
As for the Apollo itself, Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, who also heads the Apollo Theater Foundation, issued a statement attacking any attempt to “portray the mayor as disrespectful of this historic venue, its heritage and the community it serves.”
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, got at Bloomberg’s real motive for skipping the Apollo: “When you’re the incumbent – I’ve been through this myself – you want to have as few debates as possible.”
Ferrer’s decision to hook up with Sharpton cost him in 2001. He spent the next four years trying to move back to his natural position in the political center, with the often thoughtful policies that have long marked his record.
Yet the nominally Republican mayor has spent those same four years quietly making dramatic inroads into the Democrats’ ethnic base. Now the Ferrer camp seems to think it can turn the race around by riling up that base and appealing to resentment – or is just grasping at the only straw it can come up with.
But they’ve got enough to overcome, what with Bloomberg’s soaring poll ratings and his bottomless personal checking account. The last thing Ferrer needs is to run the rest of this race with the albatross of Al Sharpton hanging around his neck.
