Bloomberg confirms NY money problems

WE'VE MOVED! Democratic Convention Watch is now at http://www.DemocraticConventionWatch.com

When I noted last week that New York was having problems raising money for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the consensus was that it was probably just a ploy to get donors to loosen their wallets. Well, the NY Times article should have been enough to get the message out. But today, Mayor Bloomberg raised the issue again:

"I think it will be difficult for the city. As you know, we are trying to raise a couple hundred million dollars to pay for the memorial and we have a poverty initiative which I'm really excited about, which we'll have to raise the money privately for because it is so innovative, and I think those things, in terms of raising money, would probably be much higher priorities for everybody. But we would be honored to have the convention. But these conventions have gotten so expensive."

This is bad news for New York's bid. Repeating the problem is not going to put any more pressure on donors than the NY Times article did. So it's therefore hard to read the above quote without thinking that New York is about to give up on this thing.