Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. It’s a mayor missing in action from New York City.
For some unfathomable reason, Mayor Bill de Blasio seems to think he has a chance of relocating from Gracie Mansion to the White House, and has ventured to parts unknown with a message at least six people want to hear.
That’s the number of folks who turned out in New Hampshire recently to listen to de Blasio’s wit and wisdom. When everyone attending your meeting can fit into one cab, it might be time to face reality.
But not the mayor. Like the charisma-free nerd convinced the high school beauty queen is dying to be his date for the prom, you have to admire de Blasio’s — what? Persistence? Chutzpah?
Even his in home state, few support him. According to the latest Quinnipiac University poll, de Blasio’s ratings in New York State are 24 percent favorable, 49 percent unfavorable. It’s not much better in New York City, where it’s 36 percent favorable, 48 percent unfavorable.
Why have we turned off to de Blasio? Because we pay him to run our city, and he is AWOL way too often. When he touted his “tale of two cities,” we didn’t think he meant New York and Sioux City, Iowa. Yet since becoming mayor, de Blasio has visited that early caucus state four times.
De Blasio imagines himself a progressive hero, a younger Bernie Sanders.
The difference? Sanders has charisma — and conviction. What de Blasio says and does often clash.
For example, de Blasio preaches about the danger of carbon emissions, yet while in town, he takes a caravan of SUVs to Brooklyn from Manhattan each morning to work out, instead of walking to a nearby gym.
The truth is, our wandering mayor has as much chance of being selected the Democratic presidential nominee as being chosen to play the next Batman. But still he persists, gallivanting across the country and droning on to empty chairs.
We have problems in this town that require the attention of a full-time mayor — homelessness and lack of affordable housing, to name two. But if de Blasio insists on his out-of-town ego trips, an increasing number of New Yorkers seem to be saying, don’t bother coming back.
Follow playwright Mike Vogel at @mikewrite7.
