(Photo: Getty)

Earlier this week, after Mayor Michael Bloomberg breathed fire and brimstone at a plethora of politicians for failing to support his law-and-order agenda, some police reform advocates reacted harshly and said Mr. Bloomberg was deflecting from the real issues.

But not Joe Lhota. In fact, Mr. Lhota, a Republican vying to replace the term-limited Mr. Bloomberg, thought the speech was better than anything he's ever heard from a mayor.

"Bravo! Bravo to Mayor Bloomberg for that speech," Mr. Lhota exclaimed in a radio interview with Brian Lehrer this morning. "It was probably the best speech I've ever heard a mayor of the City of New York give in the 59 years I've been a resident of this city."

The abundance of praise--perhaps because Mr. Lhota used to work for former Mayor Rudy Giuliani--prompted Mr. Lehrer to interject with disbelief, asking, "What?"

"Mike Bloomberg was on target as best as I've seen him," Mr. Lhota continued. "The best speech he's ever given. He was absolutely, 100 percent correct. And I applaud him for what he said and his overall approach."

Mr. Lhota went on to defend Mr. Bloomberg's positions, calling legislation to install an NYPD inspector general "absolutely wrong" and touting the success of the police department's controversial stop-and-frisk policy.

In another part of the interview, Mr. Lhota even shared Mr. Bloomberg's disdain for The New York Times, which was passionately presented during Tuesday's speech.

"It's gross insensitivity on the part of The New York Times," Mr. Lhota said when asked about a Times editorial castigating Mr. Giuliani for placing a crisis-command bunker in The World Trade Center and comments he made at a Lhota fund-raiser. "I'm never surprised by the insensitivity of The New York Times editorial board."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Photo: Getty)

The first act of last weekend's annual Inner Circle show featured a spoof of Back To The Future with Mayor Michael Bloomberg traveling back in time in an attempt to find a famous historical figure worthy of serving as his successor. At his press conference this afternoon announcing the LINK initiative to connect low-income New Yorkers with job opportunities, Politicker asked Mayor Bloomberg which historical figure he would choose if he could indeed travel back in time to pick someone to follow him in City Hall. Mayor Bloomberg declined to answer the question.

"No matter what I say there is no good answer to that without you making fun of me," said the mayor. "I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid, even though that's a stupid question."

Though he declined to identify a historical leader he thinks would be worthy to succeed him, Mayor Bloomberg did shed some light on how he views his mayoral predecessors and how he believes his successor should be evaluated.

"The way I would answer your question is  ... Giuliani, Dinkins and Koch, going back in time, have addressed--have had different problems to focus on and have addressed them in different ways. All of them have used the resources and liabilities that have come from the previous administrations and they built on that. I think after all of those [administrations] the city has been better off," Mayor Bloomberg said. "The city has come a long way and I'm just--I hopefully will leave enough things in place that whoever comes after, they'll do things differently, but they'll take that and build on that. And if they don't, you know, it's up to the public."

Mayor Bloomberg also explained why he doesn't believe different leaders should be measured against one another.

"I think these comparisons of one mayor to another or one leader to another really aren't scientific--don't make a lot of sense," he said. "Just because you have different situations with different opportunities."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Photo: Getty)

At his press conference this afternoon, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was asked about his thoughts on the "Twitter universe" in light of a recent scandal involving an EMS lieutenant who was suspended after the New York Post revealed a series of racist statements he made on the social media site. Mayor Bloomberg described it as evidence people need to be far more careful about what they post online and suggested he'd even warned one of his fellow media moguls, Rupert Murdoch, to stay away from Twitter.

"Everything you send out is going to be retweeted, re-Facebooked, re this, re that and ... if you write it down, some day somebody's going to FOIL it or get it based on a judge's order," said Mayor Bloomberg. "You should write down, number one, only things you believe and, number two, then think about how it would look if somebody else sees it."

Mayor Bloomberg went on to say parents should explain the need to be discrete on social media to their children.

"There are just a lot of young kids who are doing things on their Twitter account, their Facebook account that later on is going to come back and bite them," Mayor Bloomberg said. "I know you want to share information and I know it's nice to be able to express yourself but you just have to have the maturity to understand."

Though the mayor, who has a robust social media presence, said he expects children will make mistakes on Twitter, he expressed surprise the EMS lieutenant who got in hot water and other adults still don't realize the site has a public audience.

"It's kind of hard to understand how anybody like that would not think that some day somebody's going to take a look at what they do," said the mayor. "The bottom line is, it's very addictive, it's easy, you hit a button and nobody thinks that the rest of the world is looking."

The questions on the Twitter scandal came from New York Post reporter David Seifman. After getting the mayor's initial thoughts on the situation and the site in general, Mr. Seifman asked the mayor if he would ever enact a policy to prevent public employees from using social media inappropriately or would just leave it up to "common sense." Mayor Bloomberg said it would be difficult to institute any specific policy.

"There are all sorts of First Amendment issues. I've looked into it," Mayor Bloomberg said. "Companies face this all the time, just like governments do. It's embarrassing to a company to have somebody go out and insult or worse."

To demonstrate just how dangerous he believes Twitter can be for businesses, Mayor Bloomberg told Mr. Seifman he had warned his "boss" to stay off the site. Mayor Bloomberg's comment seemed to be an obvious allusion to Post owner Rupert Murdoch, whose frequent tweeting has not come without controversy.

"I've told your boss I think he should stop twittering," Mayor Bloomberg said to Mr. Seifman. "It's dangerous because people can take things out of--you know, 140 odd characters doesn't give you a chance to explain what you really mean. It's just a phrase that gets taken out of context."

Mayor Bloomberg was coy when another reporter followed up by asking him to confirm he was referring to Mr. Murdoch.

"I don't know who that would be," he said with a laugh.

Mayor Bloomberg (Photo: Getty)

Over the weekend Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a $12 million ad campaign dedicated to pushing senators to back legislation that would expand background checks against gun buyers. This ad blitz was the latest salvo in the expensive attack on illegal guns the billionaire mayor has focused on in recent months and it prompted National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre to accuse him of trying to "buy America." At a press conference this afternoon where he was announcing a new program to help connect low-income city residents with job opportunities, many of the questions Mayor Bloomberg fielded from reporters were about his war of words with the NRA. Mayor Bloomberg first addressed the response he's received after announcing the ad campaign and said an "enormous number" of people have thanked him for the commercials.

"Nobody's going to walk up to me and say bad things, so I'm not so sure that I can actually represent, but I've just had lots and lots of phone calls, text messages, emails, people in the street ... that are just so thankful that somebody's willing to stand up and to counter the NRA," he said.

Mayor Bloomberg went on to question the logic behind the NRA criticizing the amount of money he's spent advocating for gun control.

"The NRA has spent $100 million and they object to my ten million ... or whatever the number is," said Mayor Bloomberg. "They've had it their own way they keep trying to say what's going on from their point of view."

He went on to say the NRA believed "there is no other point of view." Bringing up the approximately $2.5 million he recently spent to back a pro-gun control House candidate in Illinois, Mayor Bloomberg said he was merely trying to present an alternative perspective. The mayor's candidate, Robin Kelly, was victorious in a race his aides said they had been able to turn into a "referendum on guns."

"In Illinois, I spent a couple million bucks and gave another point of view on terms of how people had voted, and the pub listened and then the public decided," explained Mayor Bloomberg. "Nobody's buying votes. What you are doing is, you're getting access with this money to tell the public the facts. For example, Joe Smith voted for, or Joe Smith voted against this bill and this bill does x, y, z or doesn't do a, b, c. And then, let the public decide."

When he responded to the ad campaign, Mr. LaPierre cited the mayor's previous anti-obesity initiatives and described the gun control efforts as part of a pattern of Mayor Bloomberg trying to use money to "impose his will on the American public." Another reporter at this afternoon's press conference asked Mayor Bloomberg why he thought Mr. LaPierre was focusing on him personally rather than the content of his commercials.

"He doesn't have an argument," Mayor Bloomberg said of Mr. LaPierre. "Standing there and saying, 'Oh, I think we should leave guns in the hands of people that kill everybody and put our kids in danger,' is probably not a good strategy for him. So, he's got to find spomething else to talk about."

Politicker then asked Mayor Bloomberg what he thought about the fact NRA robocalls against gun control legislation have been received by residents of Newtown, Connecticut, which was the site of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December. At this point, Mayor Bloomberg was in no mood to discuss the gun battle any further.

"Enough with the NRA," he said, attempting to move to another question.

However, we pressed the point and Mayor Bloomberg said the NRA "ought to be ashamed" for making their robocalls in Newtown.

"You know, sometimes people just dont express--don't use good judgement. I guess the word shameless sort of comes up," said Mayor Bloomberg. "Of all the places you shouldn't be doing robocalls, I would think most people would say that's not a good place to do it. They ought to be ashamed."

Jose Canseco (Photo: Getty)

After traveling to Albany last month to support State Senator Jeff Klein's push to ban the nutritional supplement DMAA, baseball great, reality television star, MMA fighter, admitted steroid user, author and social media enthusiast Jose Canseco's latest cause seems to be the number of deaths linked to sugary drinks. After Mr. Canseco took to Twitter this evening to urge the president to "declare war on sugar," Politicker asked whether he'd be interested in teaming up with a man who is perhaps the nation's most high-profile anti-sugar crusader--Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"maybe your next mayor isnt bloomberg a lame duck," Mr. Canseco tweeted, referring to the fact Mr. Bloomberg is in the last few months of his administration.

We informed Mr. Canseco that Mayor Bloomberg still has some time left in office and also seems poised to use his vast personal fortune to advocate for his pet causes once he leaves City Hall. Upon hearing this, the former Major League slugger said he would be interested in working with the mayor if he continues his anti-sugar efforts.

"I would partner with Mike if he keeps fighting sugar," tweeted Mr. Canseco.

We also reached out to the mayor's office to see whether they would be interested in having Mr. Canseco serve as a spokesman for their public health initiatives. As of this writing, we have yet to receive a response.

John Liu standing in front of City Hall today.

Comptroller John Liu officially kicked off his campaign for mayor at a raucous rally on the steps of City Hall attended by several hundred people where he vowed to "be a mayor not of the one percent, but of the 100 percent." Along with promising to enact populist reforms on housing, education, law enforcement and the business community, Mr. Liu dismissed the ongoing corruption case against two of his associates as a politically motivated "witch hunt" that would not stop him from winning the election.

"When you go after powerful people and rich corporations, they're going to come after you," Mr. Liu declared in a fiery speech. "They certainly have made my life challenging, but let me be clear, we are not backing down!"

Following Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson and Bill de Blasio, Mr. Liu was the last of the four major Democratic frontrunners to officially announce his candidacy for mayor. The main kickoff event at City Hall was the centerpiece of a fourteen hour launch day that took him across all five boroughs and it drew, by far, the largest crowd any of the candidates have managed to turn out for their launches. So many people showed up to see Mr. Liu that a large overflow waited outside the gates in City Hall Park and those at the center of the action stood shoulder-to-shoulder with periodic disputes breaking out in the crush of the crowd.

Mr. Liu arrived accompanied by several relatives and City Council members Peter Koo and Charles Barron. After his wife and son gave brief introductions, Mr. Liu launched into a speech that started with his family's journey to New York City. If elected, Mr. Liu would be the first Asian mayor of the five boroughs. He told the crowd his family was drawn to New York from Taiwan because of the city's "sacred promise" of "opportunities." He highlighted this by sharing an anecdoate he's often fond of repeating, the fact he and all his brothers were named after the Kennedys.

"My parents truly believed in that promise, that an immigrant family named Liu could work their way up to become like the family named Kennedy," said Mr. Liu. "That's why they named me John and you could ask my brothers Robert and Edward."

Mr. Liu went on to share another one of his oft-repeated tales, a story of his mother working in a "sweatshop" that she has described as untrue.

"My parents kept their part of the promise, my dad taking a job far beneath what he had had in Taiwan and my mom spending years in a sweatshop many days that I had to join her in," Mr. Liu said. "And New York keept its promise to us, because, if we didn't quite rival the Kennedys in prominence, a New York City public school kid like me could … make it all the way up to New York City comptroller."

Mr. Liu presented these bits family history to illustrate his argument that, under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city no longer offers residents the chance to succeed he and his family once experienced.

"I don't need to tell you that economic justice and equal opportunity have gone the way of checkered cabs and 50 cent slices," said Mr. Liu. "In New York City these last twelve years, the rich keep getting filthy rich and far too many New Yorkers can't even think to get ahead because they're struggling just to get by."

He vowed to bring upward mobility back to the five boroughs again by fighting for "senior citizens," "working mothers," "immigrant breadwinners," "small business owners," and "struggling teachers and students."

"Mayor Bloomberg and his enablers have made it harder for them while making it so easy for the wealthiest new yorkers to leave the rest of us behind," Mr. Liu declared.

While all of the four Democrats who are leading the pack of mayoral contenders have struck a populist tone, Mr. Liu described himself the only one who has personally experienced economic hardship.

"The difference between them and I is, I've lived, said Mr. Liu. "I know what it's like to work your heart out and barely keep your head above water."

Mr. Liu also rattled off a list of achievements from his time in the comptrollers office including uncovering "waste, fraud and abuse" in the "mayor's pet projects like CityTime and the 911 call system." He said these projects saved "billions for the people of this city earned him the powerful enemies he accused of coming after him.

"They're more concerned about their bottom line than the poverty line!" shouted Mr. Liu.

Though Mr. Liu obviously wants to dismiss the case against his donor, Oliver Pan, and former treasurer, Jenny Hou, for allegedly orchestrating a scheme to fuel illegal donations to his campaign war chest, his speech clearly didn't eliminate the controversy the allegations have caused around his campaign. When Mr. Liu took questions from reporters after his speech, nearly every question was about the case. Mr. Liu himself has not been charged in the case and he argued anyone who wants to accuse him of wrongdoing needs to "put up or shut up."

"This so called investigation has been going on for four years now. They've interviewed thousands of my supporters, reviewed a million documents even wiretapped my cell phone for a year-and-a-half," Mr. Liu said. "When is this going to end? It's time to put up or shut up, that's what it is. We've got a campaign to run and an election to win. We've got changes to make in the City of New York. We'll let the people decide."

Since Mr. Liu had alluded to the investigation being fueled by enemies he has made while working for the people of New York, Politicker asked him to elaborate about who he believes is "after" him. Mr. Liu wasn't willing to get any more specific.

"Hey, listen, you know, there are--it's a political town, there are lots of vested interests," said Mr. Liu. "Vested interests that I'm sure would not like to see change. So, we'll be working on it and talking about it a lot more as the months come by."

Another reporter asked Mr. Liu whether he might change his tune if Mr. Pan and Ms. Hou are found guilty after the trial against them begins next month. Mr. Liu said he doesn't plan on slowing down at all.

"We're going full steam ahead in this campaign. We've got a lot of support all across the city," he said. "People have said there's a witch hunt, the problem is there's no witch. So, we're going full steam ahead. We're going to win this election."

Mayor Bloomberg holding an AR-15 assault rifle like the one used in Newtown while announcing a gun trafficking bust last October. (Photo: Getty)

When the smoke cleared at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in the wee hours of a Friday morning last July, 12 people were dead, 58 were injured and Mayor Michael Bloomberg was in New York, readying an assault of his own.

The campaign that Mr. Bloomberg and his “gun team” came up with in the hours and days after Aurora involved carpet-bombing Washington with millions from the mayor’s immense fortune and a media blitz that would be deployed following the next massacre.

“He was so frustrated by the lack of conversation around this issue ... that he decided to force the conversation himself,” Howard Wolfson, deputy mayor for government affairs and communications, told Politicker.

By 5 a.m., just a few hours after the shooting, Mr. Bloomberg was emailing members of his staff, preparing a media offensive against President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and what he perceived as their campaigns’ silence on gun control.

At 8 that morning, the mayor came out swinging during his regular appearance on WOR’s John Gambling Show.

“Maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them concretely, not just in generalities. Specifically, what are they going to do about guns?”

The moment had come—in fact, it had come and gone several times. The next time a tragedy like Aurora went down, he would be ready.

In his years building the business empire that made him a billionaire, Mr. Bloomberg developed a unique fluency for numbers and learned to view the world through a statistical prism. Multiple people close to Mr. Bloomberg have said that the figure he’s most preoccupied with is the number people in his city who die of preventable causes. This obsession with bringing down the death rate has driven the mayor’s notorious crusades against smoking and sugar, and according to John Feinblatt, the mayor’s chief adviser, it was a major factor behind his decision to step into the national gun control debate several years ago.

“This was part head, part heart. The head part was, he had been extremely successful, with [NYPD Commissioner Ray] Kelly and others, in driving crime down during the first term, but I think there was a recognition that, to continue to drive it down, one had to do something about guns. I think that the mayor is always driven by data, and there’s one data point that’s sort of hard to miss, which is that 85 percent of the crime guns in New York City come from out of state, so you knew that to really address this, you had to address this nationally,” explained Mr. Feinblatt. “I think the heart part was ... every mayor gets that call at 2 in the morning and has to arrive at the emergency room and break the news that’s going to break somebody’s heart ... You see gun violence up close [and] personally in a way that federal officials just don’t.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s first national initiative was called Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group he co-founded with Boston Mayor Tom Menino in 2006 to address what Mr. Menino described at the time as “a crisis on the streets of our nation.” In the years that followed, the group grew from 15 mayors who attended the inaugural summit at Gracie Mansion to more than 900. They shared gun control strategies and launched a PR campaign that included two Super Bowl ads.

It took the Aurora shooting to propel Mr. Bloomberg to kick those efforts into high gear. Both Mr. Wolfson and Mr. Feinblatt said the shooting was the event that defined the mayor’s current approach to gun violence. “It all flows immediately from that moment,” Mr. Feinblatt said.

Mr. Bloomberg’s anti-gun battle plan would be driven by data and paid for largely with the mayor’s vast personal fortune, allowing him to fuel the national conversation on gun control. Mr. Wolfson said this strategy “didn’t really crystallize until after Aurora” and stemmed from the mayor’s “real disappointment with the lack of focus last fall on this issue and the sense that the NRA had the field to itself.”

On December 14, 21 weeks after the Aurora shooting, Adam Lanza opened fire on an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., killing 26 children and teachers. This time, Mr. Bloomberg was ready.

Three days later, he appeared at City Hall, flanked by more than 30 people who had been touched by gun violence, to unveil the “Demand a Plan” initiative his aides had been working on since Aurora. It included three “common sense public safety measures” he called on Congress to enact: requiring criminal background checks for all gun buyers, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and making gun trafficking a federal crime. Work on the "Demand a Plan" website had begun within 72 hours of the Aurora shootings.

Along with pushing the conversation on gun control—on the cover of Time magazine, and in numerous other media outlets—the mayor’s initiatives also shaped the White House’s own response. Mayor Bloomberg and his “gun team,” which has been working “seven days a week” since the killings in Connecticut, according to Mr. Feinblatt, have made multiple trips to Washington to speak with lawmakers and provide both polling and logistical data on the feasibility of various gun control policies.

In January, the president sent a plan to Congress that included all three of the key elements from Mr. Bloomberg’s plan.

With Mayors Against Illegal Guns functioning as the propaganda arm of Mr. Bloomberg’s anti-gun movement, its military arm is Independence USA PAC, a political action committee that the mayor created in October and tapped Mr. Wolfson to lead. The so-called super PAC is dedicated to electing politicians who support his gun control proposals—and defeating those who don’t.

Using approximately $10 million of the mayor’s money, the PAC saw three of the six candidates it backed in November House races go on to win; the impact of the mayor’s money on those races was hard to gauge, however, given the relatively small amount of time between the PAC’s October launch and election day. Even with a mixed record of success, Mr. Bloomberg’s election spending put Washington on notice, adding muscle to his other anti-gun violence efforts.

“Putting the PAC together with his, what I’ll [call] purchasing power, it absolutely keeps him on everyone’s radar, you know, no different than a Sheldon Adelson,” Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm told us during a December conversation about Mr. Bloomberg’s stature in Washington. “This is a guy that by virtue—just by the virtue of his financial means, is a player whether you like it or not. I mean he is because he has the clout to be that.”

Last month, the PAC notched its first unequivocal victory when Democrat Robin Kelly defeated former Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson in a special primary election to replace Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who resigned in late November before pleading guilty to federal campaign finance fraud charges.

Ms. Kelly was supported by approximately $2.5 million in ads paid for by Independence USA that, according to Mr. Wolfson, “helped make the race a referendum on guns.” The New York Times, MSNBC and others all called the race a “win for Bloomberg.”

“We elected somebody who’s going to be a real champion on this issue. There’s going to be a vote in this House. She will be a reliable—not just a reliable vote, but a champion for the president’s proposals, and that’s really important,” said Mr. Wolfson of Ms. Kelly’s victory.

In many ways, the anti-gun violence strategy hatched by the mayor and his advisers after Aurora was uniquely Bloombergian. Both of his gun control initiatives are extraordinarily well-financed and, as a result, are backed by top political consultants. Demand a Plan—which was redubbed Demand Action this month after the president revealed his Bloomberg-friendly gun control plan—is also driven by data, with all of its legislative recommendations backed by extensive polling and research.

Whether or not Congress passes the president’s gun control plan, Mr. Wolfson described the mayor as “in this for the long haul.”

Mr. Bloomberg is currently headed into the home stretch of his 12 years in City Hall. Though he and his close aides have remained tight-lipped about his future, it seems clear he will be substantially engaged in advocacy on the issues closest to his heart, which, in addition to gun control, include immigration reform, gay rights, climate change and education reform. Mr. Bloomberg won’t say where or how he will strike next, but his gun control initiative provides a blueprint for the type of effective, expensive approach he could bring to this post-mayoral political activity.

“Look, the mayor has an enormous platform and will continue to have influence on the issues he cares about,” Mr. Wolfson said of the mayor’s future plans. “He spent roughly 10 million dollars last November. He described that as sticking his toe in the water.”

hwalker@observer.com

Christine Quinn in the Bronx with supporters and her father, Larry.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn launched her campaign yesterday with a nod to her roots by kicking off a five borough "walk and talk" tour at the intersection of Broadway and Isham Street in Inwood a stone's throw from a church with ties to her family. Ms. Quinn used the tale of her grandparents' journey from New York to Ireland to emphasize the main theme of her campaign--fighting for the middle class. Along with articulating her message, the five borough tour allowed Ms. Quinn to directly address the central questions and controversies surrounding her campaign, namely, her seemingly close ties to the current occupant of City Hall, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"It's very exciting to get to be here right across the street from the church where my parents were married, and my sister was baptized and my grandfather was buried, from right near where my mother grew up to announce that today I am officially running to be the mayor of the great City of New York," declared Ms. Quinn in the first of the day's five speeches. "This is a city where, 100 years ago, all four of my grandparents, really just kids basically, got on ships and went across oceans ... They had heard that magical things could happen here, that if you came here you could get work, you could get decent housing, you could be free and you could get out of poverty. And that's what this city did for them and for my family it gave us a gateway into the middle class. ... That's the ultimate truth about New York, that it needs to remain and become even more that place of opportunity, a place that's a beacon for the middle class and people who are fighting so hard to get into that middle class."

In addition to describing her vision for providing "middle class and working class people" with "decent housing," "affordable childcare," "great public schools,"  "safe streets" and "good jobs," Ms. Quinn focused on another core element of her pitch to voters--her experience. According to the polls, Ms. Quinn is the overwhelming frontrunner in the race. She's also the highest ranked elected official among the major Democratic candidates. These factors have led her rivals to spend a good deal of time and energy alluding to controversial aspects of her career, namely the perception she's too close to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and that she is responsible for stopping the Paid Sick Days legislation. Ms. Quinn not-so-subtly dismissed the critiques from her rivals by repeatedly casting the mayoral campaign as a choice between her  proven record and "fingerpointing."

"If you look at my record, it's not one of criticism and fingerpointing, it's one of action, results and delivering," Ms. Quinn said. "Our job is to get things done to keep this city moving forward."

After her first speech, Ms. Quinn took a few questions from reporters. Politicker asked about her strong showing in the polls, which have her with almost enough of a lead to avoid a runoff race against the other candidates in the Democratic primary.

"I hadn't noticed," quipped Ms. Quinn before downplaying the numbers. "Look, it's March, we're at the beginning of this race and we're walking, and talking and running to win. And that means working every single day, taking nothing for granted. ... We won't know who won until election day and those are the only numbers that really matter."

She also touched on the attacks from her opponents when she was asked about Bill de Blasio's particularly relentless drumming on the Paid Sick Days issue.

"Again I hadn't noticed ... but thank you for telling me," Ms. Quinn said of Mr. de Blasio's salvos. "I support the goal of having Paid Sick Leave, but I don't want to impose it at a time that could have a very negative effect on small businesses who are still being impacted by the recession, who are being impacted by the effects of Hurricane Sandy still economically." 

Ms. Quinn's relationship with Mayor Bloomberg came up at multiple points during the day with both reporters and a heckler in Queens asking about backing the overturning of term limits that enabled his third term. Ms. Quinn characterized her choice as letting voters decide whether or not they wanted to keep their elected officials in the wake of the recent economic crisis. On the mayor, she suggested they simply haven't butted heads because of her aversion to "fingerpointing."

"I really don't want to waste a lot of time talking about everything that's wrong, talking about how you can't fix it, talking about how terrible everything is," said Ms. Quinn adopting a mocking tone. "I want to get things done, I want to fix things."

Ms. Quinn's campaign is a historic one. If elected she would be both the first female and the first openly gay mayor in New York City. The historic nature of her candidacy drew some supporters to accompany the tour including a female former NYPD detective who brought two young girls and encouraged them to pose for a picture with Ms. Quinn at her second stop in the Bronx.

"This is women's history," she said as Ms. Quinn gave the children a hug. "This is history kids."

Though her status as a pioneer was palpable on the tour with Ms. Quinn's wife, Kim Catullo, accompanying her along the way, her sexuality and marriage was not shown in the video that officially launched the campaign yesterday morning. While in the Bronx, she took a question from a reporter about why these details were absent from the clip.

"The campaign video was about telling New Yorkers more about me and I think it would be hard to imagine that New Yorkers don't know that I'm a lesbian and don't know I got married. You know, it was on the cover of the New York Times and the cover of the New York Post. So, we were trying to get new information and more information out," Ms. Quinn said. "I think it would be insane for any New Yorker to think I'm not incredibly proud as the first lesbian, openly LGBT speaker of the New York City Council."

Reporters were not the only ones Ms. Quinn spoke to during her trip around the city. With a pack of sign-wielding supporters, family members and her press corps in tow, Ms. Quinn shook hands and introducing herself to voters. Apart from the lone heckler and a few passerby who grumbled as Ms. Quinn and her entourage passed, the reception she received was overwhelmingly enthusiastic during her first three stops in Inwood, the Bronx and Queens.

The relatively high name recognition that's fueling Ms. Quinn's status as a frontrunner was also on display. Before Ms. Quinn arrived in the Bronx, a cook named Ernest Aragonez was standing with two friends outside a bodega. He said he hadn't made up his mind about who to vote for and seemed to no little about the candidates, but he had a distinct impression of Ms. Quinn.

"Who's the other one? Casmiaditis? How do you pronounce that? That's the other one, John Casmiaditis," Mr. Aragonez said when we asked him who was running, mispronouncing the name of Republican candidate John Catsimatidis.

He said he didn't know any of the candidates besides Ms. Quinn and Mr. Catsimatidis, but he had heard  "enough to know that Christine Quinn is pretty good."

When Ms. Quinn arrived and began making brief remarks in the Bronx, Mr. Aragonez interrupted her.

"Christine Quinn for mayor! Very good!" he shouted.

"Thank you very much," Ms. .Quinn responded. "I'm bringing you to all my press conferences. You're a good amen chorus, as they say."

Mr. Aragonez wasn't the only one present who didn't have extensive knowledge of the other candidates. Dana Snyder, a volunteer with reddish hair who carried one of Ms. Quinn's signs said she supported the candidate because she "speaks her mind" and is "particularly left of center." She didn't know about anyone else in the mayor's race.

"I don't really know very much to be honest. I really only know about Quinn. I'm only a temporary New York resident, so I can't actually vote," Ms. Snyder said explaining that she's a Maryland native who's currently studying at Barnard.

They may not have known much about the other mayoral options, but the people Ms. Quinn encountered in the Bronx were certainly enthusiastic about her candidacy. As she walked down the street a BX5 bus stopped next to her and the driver opened his doors to shout, "Hi Christine! How you doing?"

She jumped on board to give him a quick hug and then hopped back down saying she didn't want to delay the bus.

"That's all right," the driver said. "I'll be late for you."

A Spanish translator walked alongside Ms. Quinn and helped introduce her to the Latino locals in the Bronx. It was clear her approach to the Latino community would not match Mayor Bloomberg, who often holds forth in heavily accented Spanish. She told us she would not be following his example.

"It's funny, I can hear my mother yelling at me in high school to have paid better attention in Spanish," said Ms. Quinn. "It wasn't my forte, but I'm trying, little by little I'm trying."

Another difference between Ms. Quinn and the infamously health conscious Mayor Bloomberg was apparent when she met Angel, a churro vendor who told her she had his vote. Ms. Quinn instructed a staffer to buy a bag of his churros for the volunteers.

"We're going to get some for the truck," she said, adding, "I don't want any that are sugar free."

Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo, as seen on Instagram.

If their administrations could be summed by Instagram alone, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Andrew Cuomo would be a fascinating study in contrasts.  And one of the two top Empire State politicians is clearly much more at home on the popular photo sharing site.

Mr. Bloomberg's Instagram page has a good deal of humor with pictures of the mayor mugging for the cameras alongside costumed characters, celebrities, children and city workers. Hizzoner's Instagram also has it's more serious shots such as depictions of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy and photos of solemn memorial services. However, these more somber moments are softened by artistic touches, liberal use of Instagram's signature nostalgic filters and compositions that let iconic architecture and picturesque natural elements take center stage. The page also includes a photographic tour of New York City landmarks captured at particularly picturesque opportunities with impressive fog, technicolor sunsets and bright blue skies.

Governor Cuomo takes on a snowstorm. (Photo: Instagram)

Meanwhile, Mr. Cuomo's Instagram account, eschews the artistry of the City Hall page for a decidedly more macho approach characterized by spare usage of filters, a focus on photos of the governor, in his signature "Team Cuomo" windbreaker, on scene responding to weather emergencies and several shots of construction equipment and vehicles including planes, trains and automobiles. Mr. Cuomo is also depicted in some dramatic on-the-job scenes including the governor gravely fielding phone calls at the Office of Emergency Management during preparation for Hurricane Sandy, making speeches at multiple public events surrounded by his official regalia, fishing and flexing his muscles for an annual flu shot.

In an email, Julie Wood, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bloomberg, who manages the mayoral Instagram account, described making the page a mixture of branding and beauty.

"We use the account to and highlight important initiatives and projects of the Administration's, and also to showcase all the wonderful parts of New York City," Ms. Wood said. "I try to choose photos that are both visually compelling and also relevant to our Administration's long-term goals ... or current focus on any given day."

Mr. Cuomo's team, meanwhile, simply aims to depict the governor in action.

"We launched our instagram account  just a few months ago but since then we have been using it to give the public a firsthand view of the activities of the Governor and State Government - it's been a more visual addition to what we communicate via twitter and facebook," Mr. Cuomo's spokesman Matthew Wing wrote in an email.

So far, Mr. Bloomberg's Instagram persona has clearly caught on far more with the site's users. The mayor has both a page for his administration and a personal page that, according to Ms. Wood, was created to focus on his wider philanthropic and advocacy endeavors. With both pages combined Mayor Bloomberg has amassed over 45,000 followers on the site compared to Mr. Cuomo, who has just 1,265 on his single account. Mr. Bloomberg's many celebrity cameos (including the Muppets, Lady Gaga and even a Jonas Brother) have unquestionably helped fuel his page's popularity, but the different approach the two politicians have taken to the site could also explain why the mayor has had more Instagram success than the governor.

Bloomy meets the Muppets. (Photo: Instagram)

Both men are notoriously image-conscious with Mr. Bloomberg eager to brand himself as a technocratic administrator focused on finding data-supported solutions rather than partisanship and Mr. Cuomo, who is an especially careful steward of his image as a no-nonsense, bipartisan reformer dedicated to rebuilding a formerly broken state government apparatus. However, Mr. Bloomberg seems to have been more willing to allow his aides to create a specifically tailored version of his brand for the Instagram audience. If Mr. Cuomo truly wants to make a dent with the infamously twee aesthetes in the Instagram demographic, he might want to take a page from Mr. Bloomberg's playbook and lighten up his muscular mixture of heavy machinery and action shots with some star power, scenic sunsets and maybe even a few jokes.

A photoshopped rendition of Mayor Bloomberg and the infamous escaped zebra and horse. (Photo: MikeBloomberg.com)

This morning, Mayor Michael Bloomberg journeyed into the belly of the meme-making beast when he visited Buzzfeed's headquarters on 21st Street to announce a new "Made in NY" initiative involving a website and ad campaign designed to attract more tech startups to New York City. To mark the occasion, his staffers created a Buzzfeed-style listicle entitled, "5 Animals Who are Not Disappointed in Mayor Bloomberg," on official city tumblr and his personal site.

"Since BuzzFeed is famous for lists, such as the '33 Animals that are Extremely Disappointed in You,' we came up with our own list," the introduction to the post says. "Here are the 5 animals who are not disappointed in Mayor Bloomberg."

Mayor Bloomberg's listicle features pictures of him sitting in the stands at Yankee Stadium alongside Kermit The Frog, getting kissed by a sea lion at the Central Park Zoo, standing with a group of birds from the film Mr. Popper's Penguins and a photoshopped portrayal of him meeting the zebra and horse that ran wild on Staten Island last year. The listicle also attempts to put a rather rosy spin on the mayor's relationship with famous Groundhog Day oracle Staten Island Chuck, who bit Mr. Bloomberg during the annual weather prediction ceremony in 2009. Despite this incident, the listicle argued the rodent isn't disappointed in the mayor because they "don't always get along--but they find a way to work together anyway."

Thus far, Team Bloomberg's attempt to tap into viral internet culture doesn't exactly seem to have caught fire on the web. As of this writing, the listicle has been tweeted just 34 times, however it earned a seal of approval from Ben Smith, boss of Buzzfeed's editorial team.

"It's perfect. I'm just mad we didn't think of it first," Mr. Smith said.