Politicians are not very bright. If they were, they wouldn't keep making the same mistakes over and over again.Take Mayor Bloomberg of New York city. Here's a man who they were talking about as a potential president just a couple of weeks ago. Now, if he ran for dog catcher, he might eke out a victory.The reason? Let's call it "The Bilandic Effect," named after Mayor Michael Bilandic of Chicago who botched snow removal after a devastating series of snow storms in the winter of 1979. The result was that little known Jane Byrne, former head of the consumer affairs office, swept to victory in the Democratic primary, delivering a humiliating defeat to Bilandic.Apparently, those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it: A testy Mayor Bloomberg fended off criticism of the city's failure to clear hundreds of snow-choked streets Tuesday as an avalanche of critics attacked his reputation as a supermanager."This mayor prides himself on saying the buck stops with him, and it...(Read Full Post)