Forget Term Limits: NYC Needs Mike

Bloomberg essential with Wall Street in crisis: Lauder

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 2, 2008 1:27 PM CDT

(Newser) – Term limits have been great for New York City, but it’s time to make an exception, billionaire philanthropist Ronald Lauder writes in the Times. Lauder believes Michael Bloomberg is the man to steer New York through the current economic disaster, preventing a repeat of the 1970s crisis that ruined life “not just on Wall Street, but on every street in every borough.”

Lauder has been a hardcore term limits proponent, and still believes this should be a one-time suspension of the rule. In the last crisis, property values fell, crime skyrocketed and the Big Apple became nigh-uninhabitable. “Experience tells us that economic disasters eventually become social disasters,” he writes, and the city’s “prosperous future depends in large measure on a mayor with a deep understanding of finance, governance, and politics”—Bloomberg.

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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said today he will run for a third term, though the city council would need to overturn term-limit laws to allow it. (AP Photo)

Ronald Lauder, proponent of New York's term limits and a former mayoral candidate, says relaxing the limits in a one-shot deal to keep Michael Bloomberg is key to weathering the Wall St. storm. (AP Photo)

In this photograph provided by "Meet the Press," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appears on "Meet the Press'" Sunday, Sept. 21, 2008, at the NBC studios in Washington. (AP Photo/Meet The Press, Alex Wong)

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For a city poised on the brink of economic disaster, a prosperous future depends in large measure on a mayor with a deep understanding of finance, governance, and politics. - Ronald Lauder, endorsing Michael Bloomberg's bid for a third term

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Forget Term Limits: NYC Needs Mike