What’s saved both Bloomberg and New York over the past decade is the current mayor has been smart enough not to gut Giuliani’s police department reforms, which has maintained the low crime and murder rates (albeit both are up so far in the first half of 2011). It’s also why New York voters have balked at electing the official Democratic Party candidate for mayor over the past five election cycles; because they suspect that while the Democrat would have no problem keeping Mayor Mike’s nanny state guidelines in place, they’d also bow to the wishes of the more radically passionate with in the city’s liberal coalition and begin stripping back the reforms of the mid-1990s.

Anthony Weiner’s goal after he lost the 2005 NYC mayoral primary was to keep moving to the left to gain the support of those passionate radicals for a new run at Gracie Mansion in 2013, since the hard core types are some of the NYC Dems’ most reliable voters. If he’s still planning to run in two years, you might even see a more nakedly obvious (so to speak) Anthony Weiner moving further to the left against a field that could include others like John Liu who make Weiner look moderate by comparison. If someone like that wins office in 2013, 70s nostalgic liberals in the city should get their wish for a return to the past by the end of this decade.