America's Ultimate Dead-End Job
New York. If you can make it there you'll make it anywhere. Except politics
By BRAD PARKS
WSJ
Two years before the end of the 19th century, in a faraway land, a mostly forgotten former New York City mayor named John T. Hoffman was stricken by a fatal heart attack.
His remains arrived in New York a month later. In a coffin covered almost entirely in flowers–cut roses at the foot, lily sprays in the middle, wreaths of ivy and palms at the head—he was committed to the ground in a family plot at Dale Cemetery in Ossining, N.Y., surrounded by local dignitaries, family and friends.
Along with him, they might as well have buried the political hopes of New York mayors ever since.
In the 141 years since Hoffman jumped from city hall to the governor's mansion, no man elected mayor of New York has moved onto higher elected office. And as the city's quadrennial election for chief executive kicks in, with all its sound and fury, it's worth remembering that Michael Bloomberg and William Thompson are essentially competing for a booby prize: Mayor of New York is the biggest dead-end job in U.S. politics.
(More here.)
By BRAD PARKS
WSJ
Two years before the end of the 19th century, in a faraway land, a mostly forgotten former New York City mayor named John T. Hoffman was stricken by a fatal heart attack.
His remains arrived in New York a month later. In a coffin covered almost entirely in flowers–cut roses at the foot, lily sprays in the middle, wreaths of ivy and palms at the head—he was committed to the ground in a family plot at Dale Cemetery in Ossining, N.Y., surrounded by local dignitaries, family and friends.
Along with him, they might as well have buried the political hopes of New York mayors ever since.
In the 141 years since Hoffman jumped from city hall to the governor's mansion, no man elected mayor of New York has moved onto higher elected office. And as the city's quadrennial election for chief executive kicks in, with all its sound and fury, it's worth remembering that Michael Bloomberg and William Thompson are essentially competing for a booby prize: Mayor of New York is the biggest dead-end job in U.S. politics.
(More here.)
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