Because the alternative to DeBlasio on the Democratic ticket was Christine Quinne, Bill Thomson, John Liu and others. Bill Thomson spent the time between the 0

Because the alternative to DeBlasio on the Democratic ticket was Christine Quinne, Bill Thomson, John Liu and others. Bill Thomson spent the time between the 09 and 13 election working for an investment firm, and given the attitude towards politicians owned by banks, failed to gain the nomination. Christine Quinne worked with Bloomberg to overturn 2-year term limits on elected officials, and ran a secret slush fund while she was on the city council. Anthony Weiner, well. Was Anthony Weiner. Randy Credico ran a very lackluster campaign. While John Liu had a solid platform, his campaign became embroiled in financial scandal. On the other side of the aisle, we had John Catsimatidis and Joe Lhota (George MacDonald ran a campaign as well, but was barely known). Catsimatidis unabashedly supported the wildly unpopular stop & frisk tactics, which were (and still are) wildly unpopular. Lhota was in favor of charter schools instead of fixing our crumbling public schools (DeBlasio's plans for public schools end up actually working, unlike charter schools); his mixture of fiscal conservativeness and socially liberal policies like choice & equal rights turned off the Republican vote - he only garnered a little more than 20% of the vote. So it was between DeBlasio and Lhota. DeBlasio spoke to his base and Democrats actually liked him. Lhota alienated his base and Republicans hated him (and so did Democrats). We get crap politicians because crap candidates run. Just like every fucking where else. Why do we get crap candidates? Because money. --- Yeah, the e-cig stuff is stupid. Yeah, the campaign against topless panhandlers in times square is pretty stupid. The campaign against uber makes sense, if you're not a proponent of neo-feudalism. Schneiderman's v. Exxon stuff is actually kind of interesting. It's not that he's alleging that they failed to disclose climate change to their investors - you're mincing words, and it's pretty fucking obvious. They failed to inform their investors of studies that could pose change to their future profits. Shaky, sure, but not entirely insane. He's not anti-business, he's anti business that's fucking us over. Keep in mind that Exxon (formerly Standard Oil) was responsible for one of the largest oil spills on US soil - right here in Brooklyn.