Joan Walsh rips apart a Politico column by Todd Purdum that disses Bill de Blasio. She adds,

I question Purdum’s lazy framing of de Blasio as the “tall” candidate who happens to be “small” – small as in having no national stature but also, I think he means, having no big ideas. In fact de Blasio wants to make New York, once the laboratory of the New Deal and the capital of liberalism, a leader in a new urban policy that addresses the corrosive effects of income inequality. That’s “big,” Todd. He may not do it, but he’s thinking big.

Also, too,

As we now know, de Blasio narrowly defeated the black candidate, Thompson, among African Americans; the LGBT candidate, Quinn, among LGBT voters, as well as the woman, Quinn again, among female voters, and the Jewish candidate, Anthony Weiner, among Jews.

Conservatives are certain that a Mayor de Blasio will turn New York City into the next Detroit. One commenter described de Blasio’s call for “safe streets” as “veering from the liberal left,” because we liberals cannot sleep at night if we think the streets are safe. My favorite de Blasio hell-in-a-handbasket prediction is this one:

To start, setting an arbitrary minimum wage is not only going to encourage low-skill employers in the small business sector to avoid the city, it could also increase rents and prices if employers pass on the addition costs to consumers making the city even less “affordable.” If de Blasio intends to increase rent controls, that does nothing but lead to rent increases in the long-run, which decreases the availability of affordable housing. Free lunches for children actually discourages parental responsibility for meeting the needs of their children. Lastly, the reason that child care is such a problem in New York city among low-income residents is a reflection of low marriage rates. Universal pre-K gives fathers yet another reason not to care for their children and fosters irresponsiblity.

That’s right, folks; universal pre-K leads to deadbeat dads. And de Blasio hasn’t called for free lunches in school, which low-income children already get, but that New York fully participate in an already existing federal program that subsidizes breakfasts in school.

The Republican nominee, Joseph Lhota, already is claiming that de Blasio is trying to divide the city with class warfare. That’s because de Blasio is big on reducing income inequality, which Republicans consider to be something that polite people don’t discuss in public.

“Calling it a tale of two cities, that level of invective has no place in any campaign, at all,” said Mr. Lhota, who was a deputy mayor in the Giuliani administration and later chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. “It divides people. What we really need to do is to work together and provide a solution, not separating people and then saying that the ends justify the means.”

Unfortunately for Lhota, New Yorkers aren’t known for being polite. And I don’t see them falling for this.