New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wonders why people aren’t marching in parades to celebrate his accomplishments. He’s so proud of his record that “you’d assume they’d be having parades out in the streets,” the New York Post reports. He says his popularity would be much higher if only he wasn’t living in this “time in history.”
The mayor listed his self-described accomplishments in an interview with New York magazine:
“When I think about how crime’s gone down for four years, graduation rates up, test scores are up, more jobs than ever in our history — I think, ‘Wow, just that quick profile, any candidate anywhere would want it.'”
But though de Blasio thinks his success is a no-brainer, it’s not a conclusion reached by a majority of New Yorkers. The mayor dropped eight points when voters are asked about his job performance: just 42 percent approve according to a survey that came out in late July. The city isn’t so sure they want de Blasio around for a second term either with 46 percent saying no and 46 percent saying yes.
Not that de Blasio considers himself beyond failure. He alluded to “missteps” and confessed to “insufficiencies as a communicator,” but said any drop in approval is simply a result of voters blaming local leaders for shortfalls in the overall economy, or “The Great Recession” as he calls it.
De Blasio, however, remains firm in his style of management.
“You don’t achieve all those things without managing the hell out of the situation,” de Blasio said.
The mayor also dismissed concerns over his campaign fundraising, maintaining that it isn’t a big deal for the “everyday New Yorkers” who have larger issues to grapple with. He says they “didn’t see anything wrong, and they’re right, because there wasn’t anything wrong.”