The headline in the New York Daily News on Sunday read: ''IT'S WILLIAM VS. GOLIATH TO RULE THIS CITY!''
The newspaper was comparing the two leading candidates in this year's mayoral election: the incumbent, Michael Bloomberg, and City Comptroller William Thompson.
Certainly, when it comes to money and resources, the race for City Hall seems to be so one-sided it's hard to believe anyone can unseat Bloomberg. He's got $80 million or $90 million or whatever he wants to spend. Thompson has a few million, a piddling amount alongside the multi-billionaire's war chest.
If Bloomberg is Goliath, then Thompson is little David. In the Bible, David took on the giant and scored a major upset, knocking off the big guy with his trusty slingshot.
Can it happen here? It seems doubtful, when you consider the array of advisers and employees Bloomberg has hired for his campaign. They come from every walk of city life, veterans of Democratic and Republican campaigns. And they're getting handsome salaries to do everything from policy field and outreach work to romancing the press.
Mike Bloomberg has dozens of people working already in a handsome, remodeled suite of offices on Sixth Avenue and he has set up satellite offices in the other boroughs.
In contrast, Billy Thompson has just seven people working so far on his campaign. They're set up in three rooms on lower Broadway sublet from a dentist. Dental equipment still lingers in the hallway. Can this tiny corps of advisers take on the big boys who can spend whatever it takes to put Bloomberg back in City Hall?
In the modern history of New York, favorites have lost elections, though not often. I remember when Robert Wagner ran against Mayor Vincent Impellitteri back in 1953. The experts, including many experienced reporters, said it couldn't be done. Impellitteri had the power of his incumbency. Wagner was a self-effacing, unimpressive little man. But Wagner proved the experts wrong. He won the election.
Bloomberg has refused, since he first ran, to become part of the public financing program. Thompson has accepted public financing and it means he will be outspent by possibly 10 to 1 in this campaign. Although polls have shown that many people think Bloomberg has done a good job, Thompson is counting on what might be termed ''Bloomberg fatigue'' to turn this race around. There are a considerable number of voters, too, who are tired of listening to the irascible, often cranky mayor when he preaches to his captive audience, the people, on whatever happens to be the crisis of the day.
Thompson was president of the old Board of Education and he may try to take advantage of that experience to enlist some parents groups who complain that Bloomberg's revolutionary mayoral control of education shut out parents from any influence on decision making.
One of the peculiarities of this campaign is that the mayor, while opening the spigot and pouring what seems like an endless stream of money into his campaign, hardly admits he's running at all. He has spent about $5 million bucks already on a series of feel-good ads, telling New Yorkers about what a wonderful job he's doing but not recognizing that anyone is running against him nor that he's running for a third term nor that he pushed the City Council around to get the opportunity to do so. In fact, his strategy seems to be that he's too busy running the city to deign to meet his opponent head-on.
The Bloomberg idea of democracy and, alas, this is true for politicians on a national level too, seems to be that you buy your way into office and the guy with the biggest bankroll wins.
In the biblical story, little David beat Goliath. Can Thompson do the same to Bloomberg? The political pros doubt it but the voters have fooled the experts before. Maybe, in the long run, money can't buy City Hall.
