When Suddenly Johnny Gets The Feeling He’s Being Surrounded By Horses

Equus is a play by Peter Shaffer written in 1973, telling the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man who has a pathological religious fascination with horses:

For Mayor Bill de Blasio, it was a bare-knuckle political fight, complete with arm-twisting appeals to lawmakers and labor negotiations lasting late into the night.

By Monday morning, City Hall had a deal — although not for more affordable housing, higher wages or any of this liberal mayor’s top priorities.

This one was about the horses.

Two years after he embraced the polarizing cause of ending the Midtown horse-carriage trade, a request of some of his most generous campaign supporters, Mr. de Blasio is set to reduce the size of the industry and confine its horses to Central Park.

The agreement, which must be approved by the City Council, ensures that Mr. de Blasio’s legacy does not include eliminating a Victorian-era institution still broadly popular with the public. But the easing of one mayoral headache could be the start of many more, as parks advocates, carriage drivers and even some animal-rights supporters expressed concerns.

The deal also underlined the transactional side of a mayor who says he is on a mission to liberalize New York City, even as his efforts are propelled in part by wealthy contributors tied to special interests.

And then there’s the five weeks of vacation, $25 million toward a private concession and — of course! — microchips:

With parks activists and animal-rights groups expressing dissatisfaction as well, Mr. de Blasio’s plan is facing a diverse bloc of opponents. The mayor’s team is eager to secure City Council approval on the plan before it can be picked apart; a hearing before the Council’s Transportation Committee is scheduled for Friday morning.

Legislation for the deal, released on Tuesday, added a few wrinkles, including a rule that horses would be embedded with microchips, for easier tracking, and afforded at least five weeks’ vacation a year.

The issue of the horses has festered for more than two years, since Mr. de Blasio, as a Democratic mayoral candidate, pledged to some wealthy campaign supporters that he would eliminate the industry. Some council members expressed relief on Tuesday that the issue may finally be out of their hair.

“I’ll probably support the agreement,” Councilman Rory Lancman of Queens said, “because my goal is to protect the drivers’ jobs and keep the horse carriages for New Yorkers.”

But Mr. Lancman, a fellow Democrat, made clear that he was not impressed with Mr. de Blasio’s handling of the situation, particularly a plan to use public funds — estimated at $25 million — to convert a park maintenance facility into a new stable. “It really is ridiculous that we have to spend $25 million and upend not one but two industries” because the mayor will not stand up to his donors, Mr. Lancman said.

Which Just Goes To Show That You Should Be Very Wary Of Anyone Who Has Uncomplicated Expectations About Elected Office

Also, “I want to do better” seems like a phrase usually reserved for alcoholics and philandering spouses:

He yearns for privacy in a highly public job, saying that time to “just be with my family” is what he misses most about life before City Hall.

He rues the errors of a bumpy year, conceding that despite an army of political advisers, “the mistakes are mine.”

And he conceded that after a long career as an advocate and strategist, the work of leading 8.5 million New Yorkers has proved more complicated than he expected.

“When you actually have to start with the substance,” Bill de Blasio said on Monday, “the world gets a little more interesting.”

Halfway into his four-year term as the city’s first Democratic mayor in a generation, Mr. de Blasio, 54, is adamant that his policies are changing New Yorkers’ lives for the better, citing historically low crime, fewer traffic deaths, and expanded benefits for immigrants and the working class.

But in a wide-ranging discussion of his tenure, the mayor, whose approval ratings have steadily worsened since he took office two years ago, offered this cleareyed assessment on Monday: “I want to do better.”

“It’s pretty obvious that some things worked as we hoped, and other things didn’t,” Mr. de Blasio told reporters gathered at his invitation in City Hall’s sunlit Governor’s Room. “I’m sober about the fact that, you know, you try a lot of things in leadership and you don’t expect every single one of them to work. You just got to keep learning.”

The mayor declined, repeatedly, to say which episodes from the past year he regretted, although there is a lengthy list from which to choose: a presidential forum in Iowa abandoned because of lack of interest; a mishandled fight with the ride-hailing company Uber; his struggles to contain an increase in street homelessness; and a delayed and awkward endorsement of Hillary Clinton, his former boss, for president.

Stuff White People Like: Filled Potholes, Sturdier Remarks, Public Radio

Message: I care:

Just 28 percent of white New Yorkers approve of the Democratic mayor’s performance, and 59 percent now disapprove, up sharply from the start of his term, according to a citywide poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College. Nearly half say that the city is a worse place to live under his watch — only 9 percent say it is better — and 51 percent say New York is now less safe, even as crime statistics reach historic lows.

Over all, 52 percent of New Yorkers say the city is on the wrong track, including 62 percent of whites and 51 percent of Hispanics. Black residents are evenly split.

Mr. de Blasio’s support among white residents has descended to a level so dismal that it has challenged a core assumption of his political strategy: that in a diversifying city, moderate white voters had lost much of their electoral influence, and that the mayor’s path to re-election runs through nonwhite communities.

[. . .]

The mayor’s advisers are now making concerted efforts to recapture the support — or, at least, tamp down the opposition — of a group that, aides fear, could rally around a potential challenger in 2017.

In recent weeks, Mr. de Blasio has paved roads on Staten Island; toughened his remarks on crime; become a regular presence on the radio station WNYC, a gathering point for white liberal New York; and scrapped his acidic criticism of his predecessor, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

In Terms Of Metrics, A 100 Percent Improvement Over Last Year

The actual headline is “A Year After His Late Arrival, de Blasio Is on Time to Flight 587 Memorial”:

The announcement on his public schedule was simple enough: Mayor Bill de Blasio was to deliver remarks on Thursday at the annual memorial service for Flight 587, the American Airlines jet that crashed in the Rockaways.

Last year, that task proved daunting for the mayor. This year was different.

Mr. de Blasio arrived on time — a few minutes early, even — to the service in Queens, taking a small step toward repairing his reputation for tardiness among attendees still angry about his late appearance a year ago.

[. . .]

“I was surprised he showed up on time,” [a local resident] said. “That’s not something you expect given his history.”

It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

“Hourslong discussions”:

The liberal advocacy group founded by Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York has abandoned its plans to hold a forum in Iowa focused on income inequality, bringing an abrupt and anticlimactic end to his initial efforts at shaping the economic debate in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Geri Prado, executive director of the Progressive Agenda Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday that the forum had become unnecessary, because inequality had already moved to the center of the campaign conversation.

The committee had circulated invitations to leading Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, asking them to participate in a public event at the University of Iowa on Dec. 6. The deadline for candidates to respond to the invitation was to be Thursday, according to a copy of the invitation.

As of Tuesday, the University of Iowa had not received notification that any candidate had accepted the invitation, Jeneane Beck, a university spokeswoman, said.

[. . .]

The cancellation was met with expressions of relief by some members of Mr. de Blasio’s inner circle, which was deeply divided over whether the mayor should continue pursuing a forum that many had come to view as a folly.

Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, had been engaged in hourslong discussions with advisers over how to handle the forum, according to a person familiar with the conversations who requested anonymity to speak frankly about the mayor’s political pursuits.