The leftist group ACORN has been plotting for more than a decade to install Bill de Blasio at City Hall, a Democratic Party source has told The Post.
“Without exaggeration, ACORN’s long-range plan since 2001 was to elect de Blasio mayor,” said the Democratic insider. “De Blasio was a big ACORN project.”
The Democratic mayoral candidate has marched in lock step with ACORN, now renamed New York Communities for Change, even before he took public office in 2001.
The group backed de Blasio that year over Legal Aid Services director Steven Banks in a six-way Brooklyn City Council race, despite Banks’ reputation at the time as a one of the city’s leading champions of the poor and liberal causes.
Eight years later, ACORN was back at de Blasio’s side and, with the union-financed Working Families Party, helped him become public advocate, a perch he used to become the Democratic nominee for mayor.
A key cog in the de Blasio political machine is Bertha Lewis, the former ACORN head who also co-founded the Working Families Party.
On primary election night earlier this month, when she stood on stage t next to de Blasio, Lewis made it clear ACORN’s work had paid off.
“We’re baaaack. The right wing will have to deal with it,” she chuckled.
But Lewis scoffed that she or the organization had a “master plan” to elect de Blasio as the city’s chief executive.
“Shame on us,” she quipped. “We don’t think that far ahead. We take one race at a time.”
But she added: “There’s no doubt we were there for Bill. New York ACORN supported Bill for council. Then we supported him for public advocate.”
De Blasio told The Post he’s proud to stand with Lewis and her group.
“Bertha Lewis is one of the city’s most passionate and effective progressive leaders, and I’m proud to have worked with her for years,” he said.
NYCC/ACORN has been crusading for more subsidized housing and a higher minimum wage. It’s also at the forefront of the fight against the expansion of charter schools.
It receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from unions to organize workers, and its agenda mirrors labor’s.
De Blasio is on the same page. He has vowed to impose a moratorium on co-locating charter schools within public schools and has even recommended charging them rent — a potentially crippling financial blow to the charters.
De Blasio’s most startling alignment with ACORN came on the Atlantic Yards redevelopment project in Downtown Brooklyn, which originally drew protests from local residents.
De Blasio, who lives in neighboring Park Slope, initially was skeptical. But he came on board in 2006 after being convinced by ACORN — an early supporter of the complex — that there would be a huge payoff in affordable housing units.
The first tower isn’t scheduled to open until next year.