By Lincoln Anderson
There were no dramatic recounts, no disputed votes, no anxious analyses of whether vote totals didn’t jibe with early exit polls.
Not this time. No way.
Mayor Mike Bloomberg proved that, for once, polls in fact can be accurate, as he trounced Fernando Ferrer in the mayoral race.
In other races, Scott Stringer won the Manhattan borough president race handily, taking 76 percent of the vote.
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum won with 89 percent of votes cast. Among other advocate candidates, “subway gunman” Bernard Goetz, whose first priority is to rebuild modern Twin Towers, got 2.3 percent of the vote and Jim Lescynski, who vowed, if elected, to eliminate the “do-nothing” office to save taxpayers’ millions of dollars, got 2.2 percent.
In City Council races, Rosie Mendez won in a romp in District 2, covering the area from the Lower East Side to Murray Hill, with 78 percent of the vote. John Carlino, a Republican, got 19 percent and Claudia Flanagan, running on the Libertarian line, got 3 percent. In terms of numbers, Mendez took 19,483 votes to Carlino’s 4,740 and Flanagan’s 643.
Running unopposed, Councilmembers Alan Gerson and Christine Quinn were both re-elected. Gerson garnered 15,398 votes and Quinn 23,633 votes.
Mendez celebrated her victory at Nice Guy Eddie’s, a bar on Avenue A and E. Houston St. owned by David McWater, chairperson of Community Board 3. Reached there there by cell phone shortly after 11 p.m., she reflected on her win, interrupting herself frequently to shout excitedly to supporters and friends — “Love you!” “Thank you!” — as they came up to congratulate her.
“I’m just very happy,” Mendez said. “I’m very grateful to all my neighbors who helped out on my campaign. We have got a lot of work to do in our community. We’re going to work shoulder to shoulder.”
Mendez said McWater had been at the party, and she noted that their friendship goes back to when they attended New York University together.
“We graduated together,” she said. “We had the same professors. We were poli-sci majors.”
Among her first moves, Mendez plans to relocate the Council office to new quarters, noting that as a former chief of staff to Margarita Lopez, she felt the office had been a bit tight.
As for Lopez, who broke party ranks to endorse the mayor, she was seen standing off to the side of the stage at Bloomberg’s victory party at the Sheraton. Noting that Lopez had a “good working relationship” with the mayor, Mendez said she hopes to continue it. And she said she’ll look to Lopez for advice, wherever Lopez may end up.
Mendez, who was just in Puerto Rico for her aunt’s funeral, plans to go back there shortly for a conference, but after that will continue to meet with local community groups to familiarize herself more with local issues before assuming office.
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