Cynthia Nixon has startled some of her progressive supporters by praising the longtime nemesis of New York City liberals, former three-term Mayor Michael Bloomberg — the man whose legacy she attacked while campaigning for his successor, Bill de Blasio.
“Let me put it this way: If Mayor Bloomberg was our governor, I would not be running,” Nixon told The New York Times in a profile published Sunday.
She made the remarks while blasting Gov. Cuomo over a series of corruption investigations and prosecutions that ended with convictions of two key advisers and left his signature upstate economic development project under a cloud of suspicion.
While she has long complained about alleged Cuomo cronyism, she has also argued that Cuomo is insufficiently liberal and allied with corporate interests — making her praise of Bloomberg even stranger.
By her own account, the former mayor’s push for charter schools and education spending cuts helped ignite Nixon’s political activism.
“I’m surprised that she would say that because Bloomberg was not a great advocate for the city schools,” said Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, which battled Bloomberg over school funding, class size, charter schools and testing.
“Now, maybe he wasn’t maybe as personally corrupt, but there were lots of scandals about contracts and consultants who stole millions from the schools.”
Haimson added: “What new support will that bring her, I’m not sure.
Nixon was arrested outside City Hall in 2002, protesting Bloomberg’s plan to slash $350 million from the school system budget and she aligned herself with the city’s powerful teachers union against the charter school push.
Nixon’s campaign tried to explain away her comment about Bloomberg.
“The Governor has amassed so much wealth and power from his administration’s corrupt deals with corporations that no one would or could stand up to him in this election, so Cynthia is,” said Nixon spokeswoman Lauren Hitt.
“Cynthia was arrested protesting Bloomberg and worked very had to ensure his chosen successor was not elected as mayor. If he were Governor, of course she’d be fighting against him.”