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Tuesday, March 13, 2001

So bored that even Bill Clinton – bruised, battered, beleaguered Bill Clinton – would crush them all in a landslide if he jumped into the ho-hum race today.

The scandal-plagued former president would pick up a solid 40 percent of the vote if the primary were today, more than double the 15 percent that the second-place finisher, Public Advocate Mark Green, would garner in a six-way race, according to a new Daily News/CBS-2 poll.

At 40 percent, Clinton would even meet the magic number needed to avoid a costly runoff election against any Democratic runnerup.

He would then wallop likely Republican contender Michael Bloomberg 66 percent to 20 percent in a head-to-head general election if it were held today, the poll found.

"He is simply a larger-than-life figure still," said pollster Mickey Blum of Blum & Weprin Associates, the firm that conducted the poll. "The other candidates in this field just don't bring the same level of charisma."

"Not sure" is still the preferred choice among many Democrats when faced with the current field of contenders, all of whom have struggled in recent weeks to move themselves onto the city's collective radar screen.

After Clinton and Green, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer came in third, with 10 percent, while city Controller Alan Hevesi, City Council Speaker Peter Vallone and the Rev. Al Sharpton were knotted at 7 percent. "Not sure" raked in 15 percent.

But die-hard Clinton supporters might want to hold off on printing any "Bubba for Mayor" bumper stickers.

Aides to the former president said last week that he has no intention of stepping into the race for City Hall.

"All I have to say is that the president is not running for mayor of New York," said spokeswoman Julia Payne. "But obviously, the good people of New York appreciate the progress and prosperity that he brought to the country and would want him to bring that same progress and prosperity to their streets."

The former president created a firestorm of criticism with his last-minute pardons, including the one granted to fugitive financier Marc Rich – an act of clemency that has spawned an investigation by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White.

But somehow, all the hullabaloo surrounding Clinton's final days as president doesn't seem to matter too much to voters in New York City, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 5 to 1.

Asked whether they thought a Clinton-for-mayor candidacy would be good for the city, a full 54 percent of voters said yes, compared with 33 percent who responded negatively.

The random telephone poll of 503 registered voters from the five boroughs was taken Wednesday and Thursday. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Not everyone was so enthused by the poll, however, particularly when it was viewed as evidence of lackluster support for declared Democratic contenders.

"It says nothing about the Democratic lineup. It says everything about Bill Clinton," insisted Democratic strategist and Green adviser Hank Sheinkopf. "It shows once again that Bill Clinton, despite all his troubles, is still a very popular person in New York City."

But it's hard not to look at the depth of the former president's support and see nothing but the shallowness of everyone else's.

Clinton, whose presidential office will be on West 125th St. in Harlem, beat Green and others in every group – men, women, young, old. He got a greater share of African-American votes than Sharpton and more Latino votes than Ferrer, the two minority-group candidates in the race.

The only genuine contest was among Jewish voters, where Green has always been strong. But even there Clinton bested the former consumer affairs commissioner 24 percent to 20 percent

The poll also made clear that Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned- Republican who is still assessing a run for mayor, has a long way to go before he threatens anyone. In a theoretical head-to-head matchup against Green, the successful founder of the Bloomberg media empire lost, 66 percent to 20 percent.

Still, Bloomberg's advisers found a way to spin the Clinton-for-mayor focus in their direction.

"Well, he is a private citizen," Bloomberg strategist Bill Cunningham said of the former president. "I would say that suggests that the public is clamoring for more private citizens to enter the contest."

(c) 2001, New York Daily News.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Pardongate
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