{"id":14295,"date":"2025-10-22T07:00:42","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T11:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/?p=14295"},"modified":"2025-10-28T18:41:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T22:41:54","slug":"the-candidate-the-billionaires-and-the-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2025\/10\/the-candidate-the-billionaires-and-the-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"The candidate, the billionaires, and the Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>wo weeks before New York City\u2019s June mayoral primary, former mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his endorsement of Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination. A few days later, Bloomberg followed up with a $5 million donation<\/a> to a Cuomo super PAC, which he supplemented with an additional $3 million as the primary drew near.<\/p>\n

But on September 11, after multiple polls indicated commanding leads for Zohran Mamdani over Cuomo (now running as an independent) and other rivals, Bloomberg and Mamdani met for nearly an hour in a discussion described by a Bloomberg advisor as \u201ccordial and \u2026 substantive<\/a>.\u201d Mamdani asked for advice on how to manage City Hall and select competent appointees, while maintaining disagreements with Bloomberg on some issues (Mamdani\u2019s affordability agenda and, certainly, his position on Israel, among them).<\/p>\n

A \u201ccordial\u201d meeting of these two men is particularly ironic. Bloomberg, as a billionaire New York businessman and recent three-term mayor, can be seen as the personal embodiment of the culmination of the city government\u2019s transition from a city modeled after the New Deal and Great Society welfare states (prior to the fiscal crisis of the 1970s) to a promoter of post-industrial economic development and increased livability for the professional and technocratic upper- and upper-middle classes (what Bloomberg himself has called a \u201cluxury product\u201d<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Whatever symbolism can be read into the Bloomberg meeting, much more important\u2013 and more extensively covered by the press\u2013was a July 15 meeting with \u201cmore than a hundred big business CEOs.\u201d<\/a> In Mamdani\u2019s calculation, he needs, if not active support, then at least the absence of hostility from the City\u2019s business elite. And for their part, the CEOs, concerned about (among other things) Mamdani\u2019s vow to hike taxes on the wealthy, appreciated the opportunity for a frank discussion with the man who is likely to head city government in a few months.<\/p>\n

The meeting was arranged by New York powerbroker Kathy Wylde, CEO of the Partnership for New York City, at Mamdani\u2019s request. Mamdani phoned her two days after his primary victory wanting to speak to business leaders concerned about his program. \u201cWho can I talk to?\u201d<\/a> she later recalled him asking. Wylde told ABC news<\/a> that the business community \u201cwant[s] whomever is mayor to have relationships and understand the issues that will keep our city strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Partnership for New York City<\/a> was founded in 1979, at the tail end of New York\u2019s fiscal crisis, by Chase Manhattan CEO David Rockefeller. Initially its goal was to rebuild a city devastated by the economic crises of the 1970\u2019s, using private money but in collaboration with local government. This meant bringing business back to the city (after most manufacturing had left) and rebuilding a middle class. It was one of the efforts of the NYC business leaders of that era to advocate collectively for policies and programs to address the city\u2019s problems and to promote private and public investment in those programs (consistent with the interests of business and, it might be added, with the emerging neoliberal political consensus). Its current officers are primarily CEOs of real estate and financial firms, and its current primary goal is to advance the city\u2019s standing as a global center of economic development and innovation. Wylde, the current CEO, also serves on the boards of public policy groups in areas including education, tourism, and economic development, as well as general policy think tanks including the conservative Manhattan Institute.<\/p>\n

The day after the meeting, Wylde appeared on CNBC\u2019s \u201cSquawk Box.\u201d<\/a> The show\u2019s hosts expressed the business community\u2019s sharp (and sometimes hysterical) skepticism of the socialist candidate and his proposals and asked Wylde for her impression. She reported that Mamdani was \u201cthe most compelling candidate they [the Partnership\u2019s members] have seen in generations.\u201d His inexperience was seen as a major problem, but in her telling, he had \u201cnailed\u201d the challenges facing the city. Of course she and the business leaders disagreed with much about his proposed solutions, but, though the candidate \u201cwon\u2019t compromise on his principles,\u201d he is \u201copen to learning.\u201d Wylde suggested that Mamdani may withdraw his plans for a rent freeze, instead keeping rents from rising by not raising real estate taxes. The television host pointed out that his other proposals\u2013free buses, for example\u2013will still require the state government to raise taxes, something that will encounter firm business opposition. Wylde responded that in the meeting there was a \u201cback and forth discussion.\u201d She said that she doubted any minds were changed regarding Mamdani generally, but the temperature had been lowered \u201cin terms of fear.\u201d Finally\u2013and of great importance to the business community\u2013Mamdani had promised to consider keeping Jessica Tisch as Police Commissioner \u201cwith her father [James Tisch, the CEO of Loew\u2019s] sitting in the front row.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently (on September 9) Wylde spoke to podcaster Juan Manuel Benitez<\/a>. She answered his question, \u201cWhy are business leaders freaking out?\u201d by saying, \u201cI\u2019ve been working on that. They are a little less freaked now.\u201d Fears about his positions on Israel remain big, but concerns about his commitment to \u201ceconomic development\u201d have quieted down. (Wylde referred to \u201cyouthful tweets\u201d of Mamdani characterizing capitalism as evil). She also said that while some high profile business people\u2013mainly in finance and real estate\u2013have bankrolled Mamdani\u2019s opponents, most will \u201cwork with whoever wins\u201d in local politics, reserving their financial support for national candidates. They didn\u2019t like former progressive Democratic mayor Bill DeBlasio, but \u201cZohran is much nicer\u201d and less vindictive. Mamdani is \u201cpragmatic and not ideological.\u201d Importantly, Wylde listed \u201csafety\u201d as a major concern of business and again pointed to keeping Police Commissioner Tisch as an important goal.<\/p>\n

Jessica Tisch was appointed Commissioner of the NYPD in November, 2024. One of her main concerns, as reported to a February 2025 meeting<\/a> of the Association for a Better New York (ABNY<\/a>), was to undo 2019 reforms<\/a> to New York State\u2019s discovery laws (requiring additional prosecutorial evidence to be shared with criminal defense attorneys). She said the reforms had created a \u201crevolving door\u201d for people accused of misdemeanor crimes to become repeat offenders. While overall, serious crime has trended sharply down in the city for the last few years, according to Tisch, many of those for whom misdemeanor prosecutions were dropped had served prison time for prior felonies and then repeated those more serious offenses after escaping a misdemeanor conviction. A few months later, Governor Kathy Hochul announced that as part of the State budget agreement between her and the legislature, the 2019 reforms had been rolled back in an effort to \u201cfight recidivism\u201d and \u201ccrack down on crime<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mamdani is on record<\/a> as having been strongly opposed to Hochul\u2019s proposed rollbacks. His decision on whether to replace Tisch will likely be an indicator of the degree he is influenced by the \u201ccrackdown on crime\u201d narrative (and retreats still further<\/a> from his earlier \u201cDefund the Police\u201d position).<\/p>\n

ABNY itself shows no ambivalence on the question of Tisch and her policies. Warmly received at the February \u201cPower Breakfast,\u201d she is in fact the grandniece of ABNY co-founder Preston Robert Tisch (along with real estate developer Lew Rudin). \u201cBob\u201d Tisch and his brother Laurence (Jessica\u2019s grandfather) owned Loew\u2019s theaters. As such, they had an interest in New York City\u2019s future in the early 1970s as the City became increasingly unable to pay its bills and default loomed. ABNY was among the first efforts of those businesses (finance, real estate, and entertainment, among others) that remained in the city after most manufacturing left to take collective responsibility for ensuring that the City would survive any default and bounce back with an improved business environment.<\/p>\n

When it was founded in 1971, ABNY promoted voluntaristic solutions (such as \u201cOperation Clean Sweep,\u201d in which building owners and their employees were enlisted to keep the city clean despite a shortage of sanitation workers) and \u201cphilanthropic\u201d efforts by private business to step in where city government was unable to. (Sections of the excellent recounting of the fiscal crisis in the book Fear City<\/a> <\/em>by Columbia University historian Kim Phillips-Fein, cover this development.) Later as the city (and the world) entered the neoliberal era in the 1980s and 1990s, ABNY promoted reforms in education, transportation, healthcare, and other areas, finding allies in the administrations of mayors Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani, and Bloomberg. In September 2025, ABNY presented awards to three \u201ccivic luminaries.\u201d One was a Ford Foundation Senior Fellow. The others were Kathy Wylde and Jessica Tisch.<\/p>\n