De Blasio draws massive NH crowd. Naw... just kidding

If New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio isn’t running for president in 2020, what the heck is he doing? Rather than staying at home and dealing with the city’s mounting infrastructure and law enforcement problems, he’s busy raising PAC money for the Democratic Parties in other states and touring the early voting states talking to anyone who will listen. Unfortunately for Hizzoner, the number of people actually interested in listening hasn’t been particularly impressive. That was certainly the case when he showed up to host a public forum on mental health. Aside from the guest speakers sitting on the panel, a grand total of six people showed up to listen. (NY Post)

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Mayor de Blasio’s ongoing tease of a presidential run didn’t exactly pull in the crowds during a campaign-esque event in the Granite State.

Only 20 people showed up Sunday to hear the leader of America’s largest city hold a roundtable on mental health — including the 14 people on the panel and just six in the audience.

There were also about six reporters on hand to make the room at the Sugar River Valley Regional technical school look a bit less empty.

De Blasio — who continued to refuse to commit to a White House run — pulled a well-worn page from his mayoral campaign playbook and put First Lady Chirlane McCray center stage on what was his second day touring the crucial primary battleground state.

His supporters should have already been nervous when he announced that the subject would be mental health. That meant that he planned on bringing his wife, Chirlane McCray along. And that he did. But as we discussed here previously, the First Lady of the Big Apple is under scrutiny herself these days. She was put in charge of a New York City mental health initiative called Thrive NYC. In the time she’s been at the helm, Thrive has managed to blow through nearly a billion dollars with few signs of any results and they can’t account for most of the money.

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All of the polling we’ve seen thus far would indicate that there is absolutely no significant pool of voters out there desperately waiting for Bill de Blasio to announce a presidential bid. Even the Democrats in his home state don’t want him to run. And from the looks of things, the voters in New Hampshire aren’t exactly on fire over the idea either.

If the Mayor really believes he can build a following and make a successful run at the nomination he should get off of his backside and just declare already. New Hampshire is already groaning under the strain of a crop of presidential candidates who have once again descended on them like a plague of locusts. The don’t need de Blasio cluttering up the streets and town halls if he’s not even going to be in the race.

But if he’s seriously going to do it he’d better sign on some good staff members. They’ll need to prepare him for the moment when his opponents start bringing up all the corruption trials swirling around his administration and the number of good friends of his who have already been sent to jail. And when they finish prepping him for those questions, maybe they can figure out where all the mental health money his wife sawed through wound up.

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