It Ain't Necessarily So

One of the more absurd spectacles in a city forever mincing words, parsing sentences, and traipsing across a tightrope between absurdity and self-indulgence is the local GOP blowing kisses to Mayor Bloomberg.

Last week, Bloomy emerged from his glass closet long enough to huddle with the chairman of the national Republican Party, Michael Steele, in his transparent ploy to sucker GOP mucketymucks into tossing him their ballot line. How revolting! What a disgrace!

Steele, who served with Bloomy on the board of Johns Hopkins, was diplomatic. "What I recommend is that local Republicans get together and figure out what they want to do and figure out the best approach and then do it, and we'll support whatever that approach is," he said with a straight face.

Now we didn't know whether to laugh or cry when Bloomy materialized at his Staten Island campaign headquarters with the Forgotten Borough's GOP leader, John Friscia, and former Rep. Vito Fossella. The handwriting was on the wall. Sure enough, Bloomy, who'd already won the hearts and minds of the Brooklyn GOP honchos, nailed down the ferryboat crowd. Now he needs but a single endorsement to hit the Republican trifecta and avoid a primary scrap. What a joke!

Remember when Bloomy announced in June 2007 that he was dumping the GOP? Well, on Sunday, the New York City Independence Party overwhelmingly endorsed Bloomy for a third term - on the heels of his promise to push through nonpartisan elections in the Big Apple. "I have been a Democrat, I have been a Republican and I really respect both parties," Mr. Bloomberg said. "But I've never believed that any party has a monopoly on truth or good ideas."

Bloomy would be the first independent candidate to take City Hall if he were elected. But, wait! Like one of those endless late-night television promos, it gets worse. One of Bloomy's staunchest allies is - are you ready? - Marty Golden, a conservative Republican from Bay Ridge.

Golden is a former cop and supposedly the polar opposite of bon vivant Bloomy on meat-and-potatoes GOP issues such as the mayor's thinly disguised obsession with gun confiscation, his draconian smoke ban, and his attraction to tax-and-spend policies, However, that didn't deter Golden from touting the mayor. No, sir!

Not every local GOP leader agreed. Some remember how, two years ago, Hizzoner was throwing his GOP line under the bus, and famously chortling that the GOP doesn't "stand for anything." That's why the Queens Republican chairman, Phil Ragusa, warned that the Golden Oldie speaks for himself. Still, Bloomy wasn't exactly shaking in his boots. After all, he's the single greatest contributor to State Senate Republicans. He paid the upstate piper $500,000 last year. That means he gets to call the tune. The fiscal fear is that if Bloomy doesn't get the GOP nod, he'll cut off its allowance.

Tragically, the local GOP is taking the soup. They hear the march of the simoleons. They need those iron men working for them, and Bloomy has 16 billion of 'em, ready, willing, and able to shape up. We believe that the GOP was the GOP when its motto could fit on a bumper sticker: "Less government. Lower taxes." And we know why the rattlesnake and the immortal words on General Gadsden's flag became the best symbol of the American Revolution: "Don't tread on me."