De Blasio, Ex-Clinton Campaign Manager, Declines to Endorse

Mayor Bill de Blasio, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s one-time Senate race campaign manager, said Sunday he wants to know her vision for America before deciding whether to endorse her for president.

De Blasio told NBC he wants to hear Clinton, who launched her long-anticipated campaign for president Sunday, say she’s ready to tax the wealthy to pay for more entitlement  programs.

De Blasio, a fellow Democrat who successfully managed Clinton’s campaign when she first ran for Senate in 2000, said she has a progressive history of working on behalf of families, including when she took on health insurance companies in the 1990s.

“Progressives are demanding from all of our candidates an actual vision on economic change,” de Blasio said. “The income and equality crisis in this country is out of control.”

He said it was not necessary for Clinton to immediately announce her vision for the country’s future, as long as does so as soon as possible.

But Clinton got some New York amity from another close ally, Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The fellow Democrat’s relationship with the Clintons goes back to his time leading the Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton.

Until recently, Cuomo was widely believed to be eyeing a run for the White House himself.

This article appeared in print on page 4 of the April 13th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.