August 12, 2013--New York, New York

The line from the song New York, New York, "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere," has never been more untrue.

Just take a look who's running for mayor and, even better, for comptroller.

In a city that unashamedly calls itself America's foremost city, the self-proclaimed most important metropolis in the world, where most of the nation's major financial institutions are headquartered, where there is to be found the Great White Way--Broadway--where the advertising and communications industries are centered, where penthouse apartments can go for upwards of $100 million, there are more mediocre candidates running for citywide office than in Detroit.

The leading candidate for mayor, Christine Quinn, speaker of the rubber-stamp City Council, is a go-along-get-along politician who is better known for her out-of-control temper than for her record of public accomplishment. If elected she would be the first woman to hold the job and the first who is openly gay.

Then there is former comptroller, William Thompson, the Harold Stassen of New York who emerges to run for mayor every four years. His best credential--president of the Board of Education that oversees the more than 1,000 public schools in the city. His only problem--test scores and high school graduation rates plummeted while he was in office. His boldest idea is to hire 2,000 more police. Good luck with that in an era of cutbacks and layoffs.

Also in the race is the current comptroller, John Liu. He is best know for being Asian and under investigation by the FBI since it is hard to know exactly the source of most of his campaign funds much less discover how they were spent. It is suspected that somehow much of that money found its way more to the comptroller and his cronies than to his campaign. If elected, he would "fight" to increase the minimum wage in the city to $11.50 and hour. About the price of a hamburger with fries at the typical New York luncheonette.

Lurking in second place in the polls is Anthony Weiner, internationally famous for his Internetting but not for much of anything else. His boldest idea is to institute a single-payer health care system for the city. As they say in my old Brooklyn neighborhood, "Fat chance." The very idea that this creep could become mayor is unfathomable to old-line New Yorkers. But then again there he is, perhaps the favorite of the Jewish and African-American communities, both of which believe deeply in redemption, and thus he is potentially electable.

This is the city of larger-than-life mayors such as Peter Stuyvesant, John Lindsay, Robert Wagner, Ed Koch, Rudy Giuliani, and currently mega-billionare Michael Bloomberg, not pip-squeaks such as Sal Albanese or Erick Salgado, other no-name candidates who would be more appropriate mayors for, say, Jersey City.

The good news--it is rumored that lurking in the wings, considering running, is Kelsey Grammar of Cheers fame. I'll drink to that.

Now let's get to the really good stuff--the race for comptroller. There are two candidates to whom I wish to draw attention--

First, former New York attorney general and governor, Eliot Spitzer. Yes that Eliot Spitzer, forever to be known as "Client 9." Also incredibly in the race is Kristin Davis, a former madam whose foremost credential is her claim to have supplied prostitutes to Mr. Spitzer. He denies that but nonetheless, they are locking horns as two of the best known candidates for city comptroller. And "best-know" counts for much when it comes to elections among mediocraties and reprobates.

In the middle of this hotly contested race, Davis last week was arrested for illegally buying and selling hundreds of drugs containing controlled substances. It is not disputed that Ms. Davis sent the following text message to her dealer--

"I got you 30 Xanax. If u run low let me kno!! Ur the best! . . ."

Spitzer is likely to win but wouldn't it be more fun if Kristin did.

And New York, in addition to being known as the Big Apple and the City that Never Sleeps, has also been known as Fun City.

She the best.