Politico has posted a devastating autopsy of the “Progressive Agenda” campaign that de Blasio launched in 2015 in a failed attempt to become a liberal kingmaker in American politics. Based on thousands of pages of e-mails, the Politico report paints a picture of an overextended mayor who tried to moonlight as a national figure while also performing his official duties, a conflict which led to repeated mishaps. De Blasio’s vehicle for his national ambitions was a non-profit group called Progressive Agenda, which flourished briefly in 2015 and managed to spend $860,000 to little avail.
One incident illustrates the pattern: In September of 2015, Progressive Agenda wanted the mayor to participate in the screening of a film with the winning title, “Hedge Fund Billionaires vs. Kindergarten Teachers: Whose Side Are You On?”
Unfortunately, the organization for the event was terrible. “A nebulous plan to have Cynthia Nixon moderate a panel before the film screening fell through,” Politico reports. “The organizers couldn’t find a prekindergarten teacher to appear as part of an accompanying panel. A week before the film’s screening, aides discovered the film had misspelled the word ‘kindergarten.’” Progressive Agenda had trouble finding anyone who even wanted to attend the screening and had to beg for de Blasio staffers to do so.
More importantly, the film was at cross purposes with de Blasio’s own politics, since it targeted business leaders who supported the mayor.
“Sorry that actual government (as opposed to the freedom of campaigns) involves having to get the whole team in the discussion, but that’s reality,” de Blasio wrote to an outside advisor named John Del Cecato. “I didn’t focus on this in time. But brother, you’re smart enough to know that attacking a Wall Street firm comes with ramifications.”
But it was Del Cecato who had the best analysis of the root problem. As Politco notes, he told the mayor that “however much he might protest, de Blasio simply didn’t have the time to simultaneously micromanage a national political campaign and govern as mayor.”
Politico also reports the fallout from a story they reported in 2015 about de Blasio’s failed attempt to host a candidates’ forum. Paul Walzak, then a spokesperson for the mayor, apparently emailed his colleagues when the report dropped: “So fucking annoying...dunno what you want to do here but we are prolly fucked.really goddamn wish this hadn’t leaked out yest...fiasco.”