Stu Loeser

Michael Bloomberg's spokesman, Stu Loeser, e-mailed reporters with a handy, if not unexpected analysis of yesterday's lengthy hearing on term limits.

Only a narrow majority of people supported opposed changing term limits legislatively.

Here's Loeser's e-mail, which relies heavily on the 10-hour marathon live-blogging efforts Sewell Chan.  read more »

Looking over my notes from yesterday’s hearing, my count shows that 71 people testified against the Administration’s bill, 58 testified in favor of it, and about five or so weren’t quite clear about their views on this bill. That’s 55% against, and 45% in favor.

Does that sound wrong to you? Well, reading Sewell Chan’s liveblog from yesterday gets basically the same breakdown.

So, what happened with the city’s Charter Revision Commission between January 17, when the mayor announced he would create one, and October 5, the day Howard Rubenstein announced that the mayor intended to make Ron Lauder  read more »

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Shaquille O'Neil appeared together at P.S. 189 in Manhattan this morning to talk about improving nutrition for students.

As the big man and the little man stood side-by-side for a photo op, the mayor's spokesman, Stu Loeser, noticed the smirking reporters and jokingly told them to "shut up, shut up, shut up."

Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs told Loeser not to say "shut up" in front of the audience of elementary school kids. "You're right," he answered.

So here’s a great example of the elegantly compartmentalized P.R. strategy being employed on Michael Bloomberg’s behalf, where the official, earnestly delivered line out of the City Hall press office is that it’s New York-centric business as usual, even as the likes of Kevin Sheekey and Doug Schoen drop ever-stronger hints that it’s not.

During an appearance by Bloomberg’s spokesman Stu Loeser last night on NY1, the subject turned from the mayor’s State of the City speech to the ever-present presidential rumors, as host Rita Nissan pointed out that Schoen had told the L.A. Times that national polling is being done and “also, one of the mayor’s top aides confirmed to us that polling is going on to test voter sentiment across the country.”

“Is polling happening?” she asked.

Loeser responded, “You’ll have to ask Doug about what Doug said and you’re going to have to ask whoever your sources [are] about that. The mayor is completely focused on governing the city and that’s what we saw in today’s speech.”

Depends, I suppose, on what your definition of “completely focused” is.

How will the fleet of cars used by the employees of the Bloomberg administration be brought into line with the mayor's plan to reduce traffic congestion in midtown ?

Bloomberg's spokesman Stu Loeser emailed me this explanation:

The Mayor committed to reducing the civilian non-emergency fleet by 10
percent in his first term, and he did. That said, a few agencies like
ACS and Building have bumped up in fleet size because we've moved people out of paper-pushing desk jobs and into the field.

And as PlaNYC detailed (on p 122), we've added 1,700 hybrids to the
City's vehicle fleet in the past five years. 

In case you were wondering.

Today's coverage of a critical report from the Coalition for the Homeless neatly highlighted the potential risks of the Bloomberg administration's unusual decision to offer regular data-based progress reports on its various policy goals and campaign promises.

As spokesman Stu Loeser hastened to point out yesterday, it was only the city's data that enabled advocates to create the report, which shows in black-and-white terms that the city has fallen short of the benchmarks the mayor set in reducing chronic homelessness.

"We told them," he said. "It's our numbers. We gave it to them."

You have to say one thing, assuming the administration's numbers are correct: they're certainly willing to take their lumps in the interests of data-based transparency.

Will the prospective candidates for 2009 pledge to do the same?

UPDATE: Jonathan Rosen, a spokesman for the homeless advocacy group, doesn't think Bloomberg deserves that much credit for transparency. He emailed to say, "The Coalition for the Homeless has received daily census reports on homeless adults since 1981 and monthly reports on homeless families since the mid 1980's." -- Azi Paybarah

Isac is getting us into trouble today.

The mayor's office says that the only time the Mayor met with the KJ leaders was at a governmental meeting where he in no way made or lobbied for a Congressional endorsement.

Stu Loeser sent us over this exchange from City Hall today.

Reporter: One of the tight congressional races in New York involves Sue Kelly. Have you campaigned for her?

Mayor: It involves who?

Reporter: Sue Kelly.

Mayor: Yes, I've campaigned for Sue Kelly. She's been there when we've needed her and I think she's been a good congressperson and deserves to get reelected. I thought she's done a good job. She'd been there a number of times when this city has had issues in Washington and she's tried to come through as much as she can. Yes, sir?

Some readers have had other interesting reactioins to the KJ item I posted earlier.

Here's one email:

"You report today from Isac that KJ has endorsed Hall is not 100% accurate, what KJ plans to do is let a rumor roll that they endorsed Hall, and on the day of election tell all there voters to vote for Sue Kelly. They are playing a trick here, to avoid embarrassment in case Hall wins."

And another:

"You have the wrong Eliot delivering the KJ vote to Hall. It was Congressman Eliot Engel. Check with your sources inside KJ."

If anybody has more information on what really happened, let us know.

--Jason Horowitz

A chocolate glazed doughnut found its way precariously close to Mayor Bloomberg and David Yassky today.

The donut was dropped -- accidentally, of course -- from an apartment window above the spot where Bloomberg and Yassky were having a press conference about the installation of security cameras in two public housing buildings.

Perfect timing.

Nobody was hit. Nobody was apprehended. And Bloomberg's spokesman, Stu Loeser, downgraded the incident, saying it really looked more like "half a doughnut."

-- Azi Paybarah

What is New York’s Mayor up to?  read more »

As the News reported today, Angela Banks-Lowe, who serves in City Hall as Stu Loeser's boss, moonlights as the Madame Star, "the girl that writes her own," and has recorded a Bloomberg hip-hop anthem.

You can listen to Four Mour Years on her Web site. It's kind of good.

Also, she seems to have the politics down. Unlike some flightly reporters, Madame Star "never had a doubt" Mike would win.

Bloomberg campaign press secretary -- and AIMfight champ (his score of 91,242 puts him in the top 5% of all instant messagers) -- Stu Loeser is moving into Ed Skyler's job as chief Bloomberg press aide, a well-guarded press release just announced.

Interestingly, Linda Gibbs' press guy, James Anderson (who will not be mistaken for Stu) is moving over to City Hall as communications director. It sounds like that's no longer the Bill Cunningham chief political operative job; Anderson will be dealing with editorial boards and columnists. That second move is another sign that Gibbs -- now a deputy Mayor -- is someone to reckon with.  read more »

And as Mike looks around for a successor, is Gibbs '09 a possibility?

The Politicker has obtained a copy of a 2001 Green Campaign opposition research book on Mike Bloomberg.

The book -- evidently not, despite reports, created by current Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser -- is available for your reading pleasure here.  read more »

Here's a little sample from the table of contents:

OUT OF TOUCH WITH NEW YORKERS Issue: Non-professionals are "the great unwashed". 40 Issue: Bloomberg calls certain neighborhoods "war zones". 83 STUPID POLICY PROPOSALS Issue: Recruit lifeguards to NYC from Southern Hemisphere. 151 OFFENSIVE--SEXIST BEHAVIOR Issue: "Shoot all the clerics". 319 Issue: Girls all tend to be vegetarians. 325 Ah, those were the days.

On the night of the Democratic Mayoral primary, as red and blue balloons fell on Mayor Michael Bloom  read more »

On the night of the Democratic Mayoral primary, as red and blue balloons fell on Mayor Michael Bloom  read more »

Jess Bruder gets an interview with an unusually frank Bloomberg supporter Steve Rattner, whose "The Party, c'est moi" stance gets him a pounding from fellow Democrats. (Bits of this story are not, presently, in the Web edition; I'll put a full version of Rattner's comments up on The Politicker in a minute.)

Jason Horowitz sits down with Stu Loeser, the Bloomberg aide who knows Freddy better than anyone outside the candidate's immediate family.

Matt Schuerman eulogizes the Freedom Center.

Eve Kessler speculates on the return of the WASP. It's a storyline that didn't work so well for Giff Miller, but Bill Weld brings new hope.  read more »

And Joe Conason watches the Right's reaction to the Miers nomination.

Lizzy Ratner and I have the week off...but you should have seen the one that got away.

The Politicker hears that Blake Zeff, formerly of Chuck's office, has started work as the new press secretary for the New York State Democratic Party.

A clear sign that the party is gearing up for ... one of these elections or the other.  read more »

UPDATE: Also, a reader notes that three of the communications staffers on the Mayor's race -- Zeff, Bloomberg aide Stu Loeser, and Ferrer press secretary Christy Setzer -- all worked together for the ubiquitous Chuck.

Instant messaging has become the preferred message of communication among a segment of the political and media class that just barely missed the phenomenon in high school.

And there's a Web site, AIM Fight, that allows you to track who has the largest network of instant-messaging "buddies" -- depending on your interpretation, that's whoever is the most connected or whoever has the most time on his or her hands.

The numbers change constantly -- they're based on how many buddies a person has online, out to the third degree of separation -- but based on a little snapshot taken around 4:00 p.m. today, here are the five New York politicos who miss high school most, and the size of their buddy networks:

Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser: 46,220 Hillary aide Howard Wolfson: 39,391 Consultant Michael Tobman: 33,477 Chuck spokeswoman Risa Heller: 31,519 Mark Green aide Corey Johnson: 28,458  read more »

A notch below them, Benobserver clocked in at 20,185.

I don't have Chuck's personal IM -- What a thought! -- but four of the top five do have a Schumer connection. Other top scorers include Miller aide Kevin Wardally, political consultants Basil Smikle and Micah Lasher, Fields campaign manager Chung Seto, and Bloomberg aide Terence Tolbert. And I'm sure I've missed a few.

The Post's series on Margarita Lopez's support for a Scientology-linked health program was, of course, not exactly good news for her campaign.

But Lopez's supporters are particularly displeased by, and suspicious of, the timing:

The news broke just in time, it appears, to scuttle serious discussions between Lopez's campaign and Mayor Bloomberg, who has long had a better relationship with Lopez than with virtually any other local politician.

Bloomberg, The Politicker has learned, was close to endorsing Lopez.

The straight, impassive white billionaire and the vocal, emotional Puerto Rican lesbian make something of an odd couple, but the endorsement would have been a real coup for Lopez and would have propelled her well into the first rank of candidates.

Now an endorsement would add a Scientology link to the slow-burning fire over his Independence Party support.  read more »

Now Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser says: "We don't expect to make an endorsement in the Democratic primary."

While the Scientology support was not exactly a secret -- Lopez contributors listed the Church of Scientology as their employer -- Lopez's backers are left to wonder who, if anyone, passed such well-timed research on to the Post.

What timing! Bloomberg Radio 1130 is turning Ed Koch's commentary into a call-in show, and moving the Bloomberg endorser into a popular Friday evening drive-time slot, the Jewish Week reports (fourth item): "But don't read too much into it, says Stu Loeser, his campaign spokesman. 'The Mayor has never used his media outlets for campaign purposes.'"  read more »

We're just back from the first campaign finance briefing at Mike's spiffy new headquarters off Times Square, where we noticed a diverse bunch of volunteers and some clear Kevin Sheekey touches. Among our favorites were the five clocks along one wall, each showing the time in a different key location: Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island, Manhattan, and Queens.

Also decorating the place were several familiar Democratic faces who, it turns out, are being quite well compensated for switching teams this year.  read more »

Here are the salaries of Mike's top political operatives, on an annual basis:

Kevin Sheekey: $250,008 Terrance Tolbert (ex-Keith Wright aide): $180,000 Stu Loeser (ex-Schumer): $144,000 Patrick Brennan (ex-1199): $144,000

Three recent hires for Bloomberg's reelection campaign have made news: Schumer aide Stu Loeser, Dennis Rivera aide Patrick Brennan, and Harlem Assembleyman Keith Wright aide Terence Tolbert.

These were interpreted as a hint at a Rivera endorsement and as a slap at Gifford Miller, who tried to hire Terence.

But we're told that the right way to interpret the hirings is as gestures from two powerful congressional Democrats that they'll offer only token opposition to the mayor.

Stu, obviously, is Schumer's communications director. Patrick is the younger brother of Chuck's talented state director, Martin Brennan. Add to that that the fact that Chuck's wife, Iris Weinshall, is one of Bloomberg's commissioners, and the fact that Mike and Chuck get along, and we find it hard to imagine the Senator throwing himself into the battle this fall.  read more »

Charlie Rangel is a more interesting case. We're pretty sure that Terence, who is in Rangel's Harlem sphere, wouldn't have taken the job over Rangel's opposition. The mayor has also energetically courted Rangel along with another Harlem titan, David Dinkins. You could, if you wanted, take these two crypto-endorsements as a backhanded vote of confidence in Freddy Ferrer. If Chuck really thought his protege and former aide, Anthony Weiner, was the likely nominee, he might stand a bit further back. Ditto for Rangel and his old friend C. Virginia Fields. Bloomberg's aides clearly expect to face Ferrer, and these Democrats apparently do too.