Mayor Giuliani’s decision to drop out of the Senate race dealt a monstrous blow to Public Advocate Mark Green’s bid for the mayoralty.
Green would have succeeded the mayor if Giuliani won the Senate race – and held the office for nine months before having to run first against fellow Democrats angling for the powerful position, and then the Republican candidate.
But yesterday’s announcement also relieved Green of a searing internal conflict – if Clinton wins the Senate seat, he’ll garner significant political power from having helped elect her.
But he’ll lose the awesome power of incumbency in battling Democratic colleagues – City Council Speaker Peter Vallone and city Comptroller Alan Hevesi – in the Democratic primaries next fall.
The latest Democratic poll, taken in January, showed Green leading the primary pack with 25 percent of the vote.
Green said yesterday: “Everyone … know[s] that I didn’t hope or expect to become mayor merely by succession because of how hard I was working to elect Hillary Clinton, our next senator.”
“I don’t for a moment believe that,” said political consultant Joe Mercurio.
“Being incumbent mayor would have been a treat beyond expectations for him. It changed the environment around him, made him much more of a real candidate.
“The idea that he was potentially the next mayor made people react differently to him over the last year, and I think he got some fund-raising advantages from it.
“That’s gone now,” said Mercurio. “People are going to treat him like just another candidate now.”
“If [Green’s statement yesterday] is true, then why did he spend all those resources trying to kill charter revision and preserving succession,” said another political insider.
Green and other politicians successfully killed a bid last year by the mayor to revise the City Charter to mandate a more immediate special election instead of succession.
“It’s clearly a horrible day for him,” said the insider. “If a big part of your rationale to get political, financial and labor support is that there’s a good chance you could be mayor … it’s obviously a blow.”
But Jeffrey Pollock, who has worked as a political adviser for Bronx Borough President Fernando “Freddie” Ferrer, disagreed.
“Fund-raising in this race is not a critical issue because all the key candidates are going to raise the maximum amount of money and get [federal matching funds],” he said.
“What Green would have really benefited from is the power of the incumbency. Besides, [Green] would have never said to people that he’d be interim mayor,” because it would imply that he expected Clinton to lose the race.
“It’s not in [Green’s] character to do that,” said Pollock.
“But everybody knows what the undercurrents were.”