Blame Mayor Mike for and the yes-men and women who surround him for blowing the deal politically. And if he can't handle Albany, does he really expect ot be able to deal with Congress?

If some prominent Black and Hispanic leaders were able and willing to mobilize supporters in favor of congestion pricing, the hypocrisy of people like Jeffries and Brodsky would be obvious. Part of the problem is that many of those Black and Hispanic leaders have "made it," and now drive cars and seem to be incapable of representing people who ride the subway.

It didn't help that at least one rally was reported as being packed with people who were paid by the hour.

And before anyone bashes the Mayor's press operation, consider that they managed to get the Post, Daily News and NYT all to agressively support the plan - a very rare trifecta that should be admired.

Brodsky - no surprise there! His constituents can afford a $700 parking spot and they can sure afford the congestion fee.

Meanwhile - we get to ingest their exhaust while they retreat to their leafy suburb.

Thanks Shelly!! (Perhaps I'll send hime and email directly)

For the record, good questions do not include:
1.Won't this hurt the middle class?
2.Why aren't we implimenting transit improvements before congestion pricing?
3.Isnt' the charge going to go up?
4.Won't you just make more traffic elewhere?

You either have a mayor willing to advocate for that or you don't. If you don't, you don't have CP. Albany's not going to go out of its way to make that happen; neither is the City Council. Bloomberg will be a lame duck next year, so the fact is, finding a mayoral candidate who supports CP more than passively does matter.

$4.4 Billion budget surplus, and only $200MM went to transit. At the same time, acting like a $3 fare is unavoidable and that a $500MM federal grant necessitated passing his bill NOW with no questions.

NY has a solid congressional delegation in a Democratic congress. You really think we can't get that $500MM next year?

And now everyone's crying because congestion pricing is dead. More melodrama. CP is not dead. Let's keep working on a plan. The Mayor's plan was not perfect. We can, and must, do better.

I want to encourage everybody who bothers to post on this blog to write a letter to the New York Times about your disappointment that congestion pricing was killed in Albany. This morning's paper had three letters on CP: two against and one in favor, and the favorable letter was written by someone living in Washington DC! I assume that the Times publishes pro and con letters in numbers roughly representative of what's in the mail bag. So -- lets get our words out where more people can read them.

Still, yeah, he might see a strong anti-pricing position to be a plus in a race against Quinn, Carrion and Thompson, all who came out in favor in some form or another.

I'd simply try to push Democratic candidates for '09 not to rule out pricing completely during their campaigns. Just keep it in the toolbox as a possibility.

But Swobo makes the point: It's really not so much about what the mayor wants, is it?

I mean, I'm glad to hear you "wouldn't rule out Weiner." I liked him up until the pricing issue. But the fact is, Weiner ruled out Weiner.

Frankly, I don't know if Kelly would push for pricing, either, but it seems at least more possible for a candidate running as Bloomberg's successor, who is not beholden to an outer-borough base or otherwise dependent on an anti-pricing constituency. (He could also count on the votes of outer-borough residents who don't like pricing but care about "law and order" issues more. This is not an endorsement, but I do think it's a reality.)

Bottom line is, if pricing is important enough to us, that means identifying now candidates for Mayor who are actually likely to be proactive on the issue. Or you can say that other issues are more important, which is valid too. But crossing your fingers and hoping that somebody will have an epiphany somewhere down the road is not a strategy, it's just rolling the dice.

So, I think it's entirely possible that a Weiner or Carrion could come back to pricing and the public may be more ready for it.

Likewise, a mayor who is perceived as representing and being a part of the middle class might have a much easier time selling pricing than Bloomberg.

They said a right-winger like Menachem Begin would never give up land to make peace with Egypt. Sometimes, that's exactly the guy you need to go in and make the hard deal.