Bloomberg’s New Ads Not A Runaway Hit With Voters
Bloomberg’s costly ads get a mixed review.
Mayor Bloomberg’s early multi-million dollar barrage of television and radio ads may have caught his opponents by surprise but it hasn’t done much to change the opinions of New Yorkers.
“I think he is the right guy for this job,” said Isabel Salazar after watching the first minute long TV ad of the campaign season.
Salazar, who has worked at Shoes by Alora for 15 years in Midtown Manhattan reflected the views of many polls that have Bloomberg on top even after he maneuvered a change in the terms limits law to run for a third time.
“I think he is the right person to be the mayor of New York, and to continue what he has been doing.”
But a growing number of residents are not so sure.
“If he really is a good of a mayor he is said he shouldn’t have to spend that much money,” said Jerry Martinez, a McDonald’s employee on a dinner break.
Martinez, who is graduating from high school this year said before returning to work, “The people should have his back to vote him again instead of spending $3 million on ads.”
Bloomberg, who spent over $80 million on his last reelection bid in 2005, is poised to spend as much as that or more of his vast fortune, this year.
“I am skeptical,” said John Starr, after watching Bloomberg claiming new economic hope for the city with the Five Borough Economic Opportunity Plan in the ad. “He had no plan until election time. He portrays himself as the only hero to save the economic mess that we are in; he did nothing to foresee it, did nothing to prevent it, nothing to diminishing the impact of it.”
Starr, 44, who lives couple blocks away from the mayor’s East 79th Street residence said he’s never seen the mayor on the subways.
“To my knowledge, he has cars drive him to the subway stop, takes one stop, and gets off. That’s nothing like walking couple blocks to the train and having to squeeze in the train with 300 school children every day in the morning.”
Bloomberg routinely uses the subway to get to City Hall often at 7 a.m.