Mayor Michael Bloomberg has returned to planet Earth. With a white-cheeked gibbon swinging from branch to branch and a Malayan Tapir drooping its head over a muddy puddle behind him at the Bronx Zoo, on Nov. 24, Mr. Bloomberg explained why, after all the talk over the last couple of years about the stratospheric national offices he could fill, New York needed him for another term.  read more »

Quinnipiac is out with a poll showing Michael Bloomberg’s approval rating is down nine percentage points, but in hypothetical match-ups against his two likely Democratic mayoral rivals, he would win re-election.  read more »

Michael Bloomberg is down 9 percentage points in a new Marist poll, the first one out since the mayor pushed to have term limits extended so he can seek a third term in office.  read more »

Democratic City Councilman Tony Avella of Queens doesn’t think he’ll have a primary when he runs for mayor next year.

“I’m not so sure the other two actually run,” said Avella, referring to his known rivals, City Comptroller Bill Thompson and Representative Anthony Weiner.  read more »

Jordan Thomas, the founder of Brooklyn for Barack, was flying home last week from Denver, where he was a field organizer, when a question popped into his head.

Could he still organize people in time for the mayor’s race, and do it without using Obama’s name?  read more »

City Councilman Vinny Gentile of Brooklyn thinks Michael Bloomberg's recent call for severe budget cuts provides an opportunity for those who are considering challenging him in next year's mayoral race.  read more »

To view a larger version of this cartoon, click here.  read more »

Representative Anthony Weiner was leaving the lobby of the Sheraton a few minutes ago, trading in the state Democrats' party in midtown for an event in Harlem.

But why?

“That’s more of a party of people rather than politicos,” Weiner said. “I think it’s appropriate we should be on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard when they announce Barack Obama as the next president of the United States.”

The rotunda inside City Hall is full of people and reporters awaiting Michael Bloomberg's 9:30 a.m. bill signing ceremony, where he will officially sign into law the term-limits extension that allows him to run for a third term.

He will also have to listen to testimony from voters.  read more »

Bill Clinton can talk a lot.

Speaking at an event to help reelect Representative Anthony Weiner at Queens College on Thursday night, Clinton stood in a somewhat ill-fitted dark suit and in front of a big yellow sign that said “Weiner” and talked about the impressive diversity in the borough (“This room has Muslims and Jews, this room has Christians and Sikhs and for all I know Buddhists, Hindi and everything else”); the importance of electing a Democratic State Senate, his “love” of the subway; the importance of electing a president who understands the need to invest in “public mass transit or the rail network for the country” to create jobs and reduce the threat of global warming and “increase the economic independence of urban areas”; the “unchanging interest” Americans have in building a strong middle-class society; health care; Winston Churchill; bringing troops home from Iraq; obligations to veterans; Hillary Clinton; Barack Obama; the two million foreclosures this year and its ramifications on the credit markets and the entire national and then global economy.  read more »