Mike Bloomberg For Mayor

On Tuesday, New Yorkers will vote in one of the most important mayoral elections in city history. Faced with the unprecedented challenges wrought by the Sept. 11 terrorist attack, the next mayor must be able to manage the city through enormous fiscal difficulty while restoring the confidence of its people and its business community. The best man to do that is Mike Bloomberg. The Daily News wholeheartedly endorses him for mayor.

Bloomberg is tough and independent, just as a New York mayor must be. He is smart. He is accomplished. And he will bring to City Hall the kind of fresh ideas and perspective that this moment of devastating crisis demands.

Bloomberg is a most unusual candidate. He made his career not in politics but in the world of business, creating a company that has grown into a worldwide presence with thousands of employees and billions in revenues. His is a classic American success story.

Now, following the murderous destruction of the World Trade Center, he deserves the opportunity to direct his considerable talents to his city in its time of greatest need.

Bloomberg is also a true bipartisan candidate: a life-long Democrat running on the Republican line. His views on social issues - pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-gay rights - mirror those of most New Yorkers. Yet after a long career on Wall Street, he is also a credible hard-liner on fiscal matters. Which is what the city now requires.

Bloomberg is supported not only by Mayor Giuliani, but by two of New York's most prominent and accomplished Democrats, Ed Koch and Hugh Carey. Not coincidentally, the former mayor and the former governor were the two leaders who rescued New York City from its last great calamity, the fiscal crisis of the 1970s.

Today, the crisis involves thousands of lives lost, millions of square feet of office space destroyed and billions of dollars - perhaps as much as $100 billion - gone. Add in the prospect of 100,000 jobs vanishing. The task facing the city is formidable.

Bloomberg's rebuilding plan focuses on bringing in billions in federal aid and putting that money to work. He will make Washington understand that New York isn't seeking favorable treatment on a permanent basis, just assistance in a time of emergency.

As mayor, Bloomberg would fast-track several crucial transportation projects, from repairing subway and PATH lines to constructing the Second Ave. line and bringing Long Island Rail Road trains into Grand Central Terminal. On another important plan, making a new Penn Station out of the General Post Office building, he already has had a positive effect. When the Postal Service stalled on its pledge to vacate the building, Bloomberg personally lobbied President Bush on behalf of the project. It worked, and the plan is moving forward.

The man who follows Rudy Giuliani into City Hall also will face the task of safeguarding the current administration's two biggest achievements: crime reduction and welfare reform. Bloomberg offers the best chance of maintaining and solidifying these major changes in the culture of the city.

He will not allow New York to slip back into the welfare-dependency mire that had deprived generations of their self-respect and hope. On law enforcement, his commitment to public safety and the officers who preserve it won him support from former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. And the current commish, Bernie Kerik, has signaled he may stay on for a Mayor Bloomberg.

On education, Bloomberg supports strong reforms for the failing public school system. His first step would be to replace the unaccountable, inept Board of Education with direct mayoral control. Many mayors have sought this, but coming into office in an emergency, and given his experience as an effective negotiator, he just may be able to get it through the expected Albany deadlock.

Bloomberg's opponent, Mark Green, has many attractive attributes. He has shown himself to be a serious candidate with serious ideas. Perhaps, in ordinary times, he would be an acceptable choice. But in this extraordinary time, Bloomberg is the candidate with the right skills. Besides, before his change of heart, Green had a penchant for criticizing the cops, and he continues to embrace spending policies that - in light of post-Sept. 11 realities - are unaffordable.

This predominantly Democratic city sends a Republican candidate to City Hall once in a generation: Fiorello LaGuardia during the Depression of the '30s, John Lindsay during the turbulent '60s and Giuliani during the crime-plagued '90s.

The cycle would indicate there wouldn't be another Republican mayor for 20 or 30 years. But Sept. 11 has changed everything, including politics-as-usual.

New York needs Mike Bloomberg now. The Daily News urges New York's voters to support him.

(c) New York Daily News, L.P.: reproduced with permission.