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Speaking at Columbia University Jan. 18, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly looked back at New York in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11. People expected the economy would suffer and the crime rate would climb. Instead, business has thrived and the already-low crime rate continued dropping.
In his gruff New York accent, Kelly explained that this unprecedented reduction in crime had been achieved by flooding key areas with officers. Meanwhile, a counter-terrorism bureau formed in 2002 has grown to 1,000 officers stationed in New York and key cities around the world gathering firsthand information about terrorist tactics. He has been widely praised for his strategy—it even won him the French Legion of Honor Medal.
Watching Kelly at the lectern of an ornate ballroom, dressed in a sharp black suit and red tie, the talk about his potential mayoral candidacy in 2009 seemed natural. Bloomberg will be forced out by term limits then, and many believe Kelly is the right man to be the mayor’s successor.
Kelly does not seem to be one of them. After speaking about “Governing a Diverse City,” he reiterated that he was focused on being commissioner, and not thinking about running for mayor.
“I don’t think about it,” he said. “I think about my job. I think about being police commissioner. It’s a full-time job.”
Nor, he insists, does he have a time frame to start thinking about the election.
“I have a time frame for showing up to work every day, that’s it,” he said, laughing.
Scott Levenson, a Democratic political consultant with the Advance Group, takes Kelly at his word.
“Ray Kelly has had a history of jobs where he’s the chief executive officer for appointed positions,” Levenson said, “and that’s completely different from the messy, retail game of politics that Commissioner Kelly has not had to deal with before.”
Still, the leap from New York City police commissioner to elected office has been made before. Theodore Roosevelt headed the city’s police force before being elected governor, vice president and president. (Today Kelly sits at Roosevelt’s old desk and a portrait of his famed predecessor hangs on the wall.)
More recently, Lee P. Brown (D) went on to serve three terms as mayor of Houston. Brown was Mayor David Dinkins’ (D) police commissioner before Kelly’s first tour of duty in the job.
“You have to deal with the diversity of the city, crisis management,” said Brown, reached by phone in Houston. “All the things that a police commissioner does serves well if one is to be the mayor of a city.”
Analysts' Corner
And as Dinkins noted, recent mayors have come from unexpected backgrounds. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R) was a United States attorney before running for mayor. Michael Bloomberg (R) came from the world of private business.
What will be Ray Kelly’s greatest strength if he runs for mayor in 2009?
Joe Mercurio: “He’s been an enormously capable administrator in numerous public and private posts.”
Hank Sheinkopf: “He can point to the drop in crime and, in the post-9/11 world, the general sense of security that New Yorkers have.”
What will be his greatest weakness?
Mercurio: “Events not under his control could derail his candidacy, such as the recent police shooting.”
Sheinkopf: “The police commissioner’s job may not be the best place from which to launch a campaign because anything can happen—not everything is under control.”
Joseph Mercurio is a political consultant with National Political Services, Inc.
Hank Sheinkopf is the president of Sheinkopf Communications.
“Some people said that a businessperson wouldn’t make a good mayor,” Dinkins said. “Mike Bloomberg has proven them wrong.”
Should Kelly choose to run, Levenson believes the former Marine and Kennedy School graduate—who is the only person in history to hold every rank in the police department—would be a formidable candidate.
“Does Ray Kelly have a message to sell that could be packaged in a way that might be appealing to the city of New York and the voting public? Absolutely,” he said. “Could Ray Kelly win? Absolutely.”
No one is sure whether he would be a Democrat or Republican.
A political chameleon, Kelly has been a police commissioner under Dinkins, a Democrat, and Bloomberg, a Republican. In between, he was an undersecretary in the Treasury Department in the administration of President Bill Clinton (D). He is reportedly registered to vote as an independent.
Levenson says that Kelly would be competitive in a Democratic primary against likely candidates such as Rep. Anthony Weiner (Brooklyn/Queens) and Comptroller Bill Thompson, but would have an easier time in the less crowded Republican primary field.
Ken Sherrill, professor of political science at Hunter College, is not so sure. Weiner and Thompson would have advantages due to their current offices and organizations, Sherrill said. Without the backing of the Democratic nomination, Kelly would be unable to raise the money necessary to compete.
“Bloomberg had a huge fortune at his disposal that Ray Kelly doesn’t have,” Sherrill adds. “I don’t see who’s going to invest that kind of money in Ray Kelly.”
Until recently, Kelly managed to maintain high approval ratings across racial and ethnic lines. Then came the late November police shooting of Sean Bell.
The negative fallout from the shooting, highlighted by City Council Member Charles Barron’s (D-Brooklyn) repeated calls for Kelly’s resignation, has taken a toll on the commissioner’s public approval ratings. A Quinnipiac University poll released Jan. 16 found that 52 percent of New Yorkers approved of the job Kelly was doing, down from 66 percent in July. Among blacks, it stood at just 32 percent and Hispanics 44 percent.
To Republican political consultant Susan Del Percio, a partner in O’Reilly Strategic Communications, Kelly’s reaction to the incident exemplifies his professionalism.
“He’s constantly been up front, quick to respond and quick to answer questions to the public,” she said. “And that’s part of the reason that he’s able to be so successful and to have the public’s trust.”
Though she does not believe he will run, Del Percio said that if he does, “certainly his popularity and his outstanding work as police commissioner and his association with the Bloomberg Administration would be great strengths.”
Whether that will hold over the next two and a half years, whether his public approval ratings will recover from the latest round of criticism. and whether he or any of it will factor into the 2009 election remains a question to which no one but Kelly knows the answer. And maybe not even him.
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