CBS2 Informal Poll: Non-New Yorkers Don't Really Know Who Mayor De Blasio Is
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – De-lusional … or just de Blasio?
Mayor Bill de Blasio's insistence that people who don't live here have a better understanding of his actions may not exactly be true.
CBS2's Marcia Kramer took to the streets Thursday to poll the people the mayor thinks are his fans.
It was clearly the question of the day, one the mayor raised himself: If you don't live in New York City do you have a higher opinion of de Blasio?
Kramer set out to find out, but, unfortunately for the mayor, the news was not very good.
If you live outside the city you probably don't see things that can grate, like Mayor de Blasio talking to aides and munching on a burger on the plaza outside City Hall, like he didn't have a care -- or an appointment -- in the world.
The burger-fest happened when he was supposed to be inside unveiling his new budget. He was 15 minutes late, Kramer reported.
A city employee later vented in frustration.
"He's losing the credibility that he once had because of some of these kind of comments, the lateness, the disrespect," the employee said.
Call it just not feeling the love for de Blasio, which may be why the mayor told Rolling Stone magazine in a controversial interview that people who don't live in New York City understand his accomplishments better.
People walking outside City Hall, who hail from places outside New York City, told Kramer on Thursday they don't get him either.
Kramer: "How do you feel about our mayor?"
"Ah he's okay. I haven't totally liked anybody since (Ed) Koch," said Kathleen Newcomber of Seattle, who added when asked if she would want him to be mayor of her city, "Hell no, ha ha!"
"How do I feel about your mayor? I don't know your mayor," added Steve Peters of California.
"I'm from New Jersey and I don't like him," another person added.
"I don't know anything about your mayor," a person from Miami said.
And then, even though de Blasio thinks he's become a household name in the year and a half he's been in office, there's the problem of recognition.
"Your mayor is Mike Bloomberg," another tourist said.
But it all comes back to the mayor's initial statement that people outside the city get him better.
"I think that's a ridiculous statement. We are up on the issues here in the city and we know what the city need and wants so how can outsiders know better than us?" the city employee said.
So maybe it's just bad karma. In the Rolling Stone interview the mayor was not very complimentary about his predecessors, Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani, but it won't stop de Blasio from taking his show on the road to push his progressive agenda, which could earn him a new name, "Progresso de Blasio," Kramer reported.
