By Heather Grossmann
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
With less than a month to go before the election, New Yorkers should expect things to get nasty when Mayor Michael Bloomberg faces off against Comptroller William Thompson during Tuesday’s mayoral debate.
Both candidates have been attacking each other through campaign ads for months, but Tuesday's debate marks the first time Bloomberg and Thompson will square off in person.
The debate marks a rare opportunity for Thompson to challenge Bloomberg on equal footing. Bloomberg's campaign has so far outspent Thompson $64.8 million to $3.8 million, according to their last campaign filings.
Thompson, who trails Bloomberg by eight points in a recent Survey USA poll, won't be pulling any punches. The comptroller will likely go after Bloomberg on term limits, a consistent problem for the mayor’s campaign and one that Thompson has made a central issue, using “eight is enough” as a campaign slogan.
Thompson's goal will be to paint himself as a representative of hardworking, middle-class New Yorkers who have lost out to an out-of-touch billionaire mayor who serves only the interests of the rich.
The public had a preview of this approach in a speech Thompson gave last week, during which he attacked Bloomberg’s economic record, saying that the mayor had put the city in jeopardy by catering to Wall Street and big developers.
The Democratic candidate has also challenged Bloomberg on his education record, a campaign issue that will likely be a major point of contention Tuesday night. The comptroller conducted audits questioning the validity of city graduation rates and the oversight of standardized testing.
Bloomberg fought back with a mailer attacking Thompson’s reign as president of the Board of Education, claiming that school violence and dropout rates rose under his watch.
The mayor’s campaign is also raising questions about the comptroller’s involvement in the pay-to-play pension fund scandal.
“It’s time for Bill Thompson to explain to New Yorkers why he took more than half a million dollars in campaign contributions from placement agents and others who got millions in fees from the City’s pension funds,” Howard Wolfson, Bloomberg’s campaign spokesperson, said in a written statement released Monday.
This will be Bloomberg’s first debate since he took on Fernando Ferrer in 2005. However, the mayor has ample experience fielding off-the-cuff questions during his daily press briefings.
Thompson has had more practice recently, having debated Councilman Tony Avella during the Democratic primaries. He pulled out of an expected campaign appearance on Sunday—the Hispanic Day parade—to prep for the debate.
