This morning's Drudge Report contains a classic piece of Drudge-ry: Just above a link to the New York Times' endorsement of Bill de Blasio is a headline pointing to a New York Post piece on how homelessness in the city's subways is on the rise. The city's homelessness problem is one that the New Yorker tackled just lately, but with fewer quotes from concernced citizens like "The police can definitely do more," and "I believe this can turn into Mad Max down there." The Post also draws an explicit, if tendentious, link between the cutback in stop-and-frisk and a rise in homelessness on the trains. All of which sounds a lot like the apocalyptic, throwback-to-the-dark-days scenario that some conservatives have been saying will occur if DeBlasio is elected.
De Blasio isn't mentioned in the homelessness article, but he does show up in another headline in today's Post: "DeBlasio Reaps Union Donations Thanks to Campaign Finance Loophole," which could have been generated in a game of right-wing scare tactics Mad Libs. The Republican mayoral candidate shows up in the section today, too, in a charming little piece called "Life with the Lhotas," introducing readers to Joe's daughter Kathryn, who was "no doubt the only Republican in her Montessori school."
What you won't see in the Post today is the actual big news out of the mayoral race, which is, in fact, really that there IS no news. As the Times reports, de Blasio continues to poll consistently at 45 points ahead of Lhota among likely voters. This would be the largest margin of victory since Ed Koch's third term re-election in 1986. Lhota may not even win Staten Island, the city's version of a red state.
Of course, it's not surprising in the least that the Post is attempting to stack the deck against the liberal. It's so self-parodying it's almost cute, actually. What is surprising, given those city-wide numbers, is how few Post readers seem convinced.
Correction: This post has been updated. It originally misstated the year of Ed Koch's third term re-election.