Snooty Weekly, Staten Island Daily Endorse Bloomberg

The proletarian Advance shakes its head that some people, upset by Bloomberg's overthrow of term limits, are planning to vote against him "out of spite." At least Bloomberg took the "public, legal route," they argue. (If he'd seized power at gunpoint, the Advance might have endorsed him less strongly)...

They also suggest Bill Thompson is too nice to be mayor. "[Bloomberg's] hardheaded, top-down management style rankles some," admits the paper, "But really, is being a really nice guy a more important quality in a mayor than being a supremely competent manager of such a vast and complex enterprise as this city is?... New York needs a leader, not a buddy." Also: "Based on past experience we remain wary of Democratic mayoral candidates who draw nearly all their political support from other boroughs."

The highbrow Observer tells us how bad everything was in 1969, when Dinkins was mayor ("the city was stumbling toward near-bankruptcy and chaos"), while today "the city is enjoying a revival that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago." Also, "The collapse of institutions like Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers did not lead to a collapse in City Hall," whereas if Freddy Ferrer were Mayor, armed gangs would be conducting Blue Room press conferences. They predict a third term will bring "reductions in job-killing real estate taxes," which reversal of form would be a surprise to some, including the Observer's own readers.

Elsewhere Bill Thompson is endorsed in Spanish as an antidote to Hugo Chavez.