THE mayor’s race is like “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” – only there’s no one good. Call it “The Unprincipled, the Unacceptable and the Unprepared.”
Think of the old-fashioned movie poster for this one.
* Mark Green is . . . THE UNPRINCIPLED! For years he hated Rudy. Then, for three days, he was Rudy’s best friend! Now he says Rudy shouldn’t have a role in rebuilding the city – and that he, Mark, would have done a better job in the aftermath of the bombings. Is there nothing this man won’t say?
* Freddy Ferrer is . . . THE UNACCEPTABLE! He owes his surge to puppetmaster Al Sharpton, which means Freddy simply wasn’t allowed to support a longer transition period between mayoralties. But he says he opposes the idea out of deep conviction and that Rudy has been a “shining light.”
Meanwhile, Freddy wants to divert reconstruction money to The Bronx. Yes, he’s seeking to filch federal dollars to shore up his political base! Is there nothing this man won’t do?
* Michael Bloomberg is . . . THE UNPREPARED! He had a great idea two decades ago for a financial-data machine. Now he’s worth billions. And he’s trying to buy his way into City Hall at a time when New York needs someone with real practical political experience as chief executive. Is there nothing this man can do?
How have we come to this pass? How has it happened that these are the choices we will have (barring some surprising swing in Albany toward extending Giuliani’s term or abolishing term limits)?
How is it that Freddy Ferrer, the most divisive and least reasonable of the candidates, has become the guy to bet on?
There are three culprits.
First, the Democrats of New York City.
In their cowardice, their hunger to placate and their shameful comfort with racial polarization, New York’s Democrats refused to move against Al Sharpton and his grab for political power – which was in their grasp at the time a court in Poughkeepsie declared him a slanderer in 1998. Instead, they used him as a battering ram against Rudy Giuliani.
Now this most irresponsible of American political figures is a kingmaker, and woe betide the Democratic Party that seeks to control this uncontrollable political parasite – who survives and thrives by fomenting and feeding off discord and division.
Case in point: Alan Hevesi. In 1997, he had said that he would not support Sharpton if the slanderer became the Democratic candidate for mayor. That stance was one of the reasons he was considered the front-runner early on. But then, early this year, he tried to suck up to Sharpton. He revealed himself as unprincipled and weak, and his campaign never recovered.
A Ferrer mayoralty cannot do well with Sharpton playing a major role. And he will. Oh, yes, he sure will.
Second culprit: The state Republican Party, which saw Bloomberg dollars floating down from the sky and enriching all who might be standing beneath with little nets. Not only did its officials essentially sell the party nomination to someone who is not a Republican, its chieftains actively blocked Herman Badillo from succeeding at his fund-raising efforts.
Consider what might have happened in the wake of Sept. 11 with Herman Badillo as the GOP nominee. He is the most experienced political figure in the city. He is a Democrat turned Republican. He was the first Puerto Rican elected to citywide office, and the first Puerto Rican in the House of Representatives.
He could have won. Bloomberg, the novice and dilettante, almost certainly can’t.
The third culprit is more general. It’s the general lack of seriousness about politics that dominated the landscape before Sept. 11.
The New York mayor’s race is cut from the same cloth as the race in Minnesota that ended up electing a wrestler as governor, or the race in Missouri last year in which a dead man was elected senator. It’s almost as though the public and civic leaders forgot that it really, really matters who governs.
Now, once again, we know it matters. But it’s probably too late for New York City.
E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com