A mayor who took more than half a year to leave Brooklyn for Gracie Mansion isn’t interested in uprooting himself to move to the White House anytime soon, sources close to the de Blasio administration said Monday.
A report that Mayor de Blasio is eying a 2016 presidential bid against his old boss Hillary Clinton is “fantasyland,” said one source close to the mayor. “It’s completely made up.”
Another de Blasio confidant said the mayor, who recently refused to endorse Clinton’s candidacy, is focused on City Hall.
“It isn’t reality,” said the operative, shooting down the notion that de Blasio is hoping to spur a grass-roots movement that will propel him to the presidency.
Sources in the left-wing Working Families Party, which is close to the mayor, said the party is not promoting a de Blasio candidacy.
“If there is a liberal alternative, it will be (Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth) Warren,” said a Working Families Party source. “Not de Blasio.”
Warren has said she’s not running.
The mayor may not be harboring presidential ambitions, but he has been hitting the road a lot recently to give speeches advocating progressive policy and attacking income inequality.
De Blasio, who just returned from Iowa, will travel to Wisconsin this weekend to speak at the state’s annual Democratic Party gala.
Despite his heavy traveling schedule, “he’s still relatively unknown outside New York,” said one progressive operative, who doesn’t believe a 2016 de Blasio push is plausible.
That didn’t stop someone from creating a “Draft de Blasio” Twitter account Monday.
“The US deserves a Progressive Democrat to run for President in 2016. Let’s Draft New York City Mayor,” the account reads.
Clinton, who often praises de Blasio’s signature prekindergarten initiative, failed to mention him in New Hampshire on Monday — citing the Oklahoma model instead.
But de Blasio supporters pointed out that she has no reason to be miffed with the mayor.
Clinton didn’t endorse de Blasio for mayor until after his primary win in 2013 and never backed him in 2009 when he won a tough race for public advocate.
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With Kenneth Lovett