Is Police Commissioner Ray Kelly thinking of running for Mayor in 2013? The evidence is mounting in that direction: he has the approval ratings to back him, a close relationship with the current Mayor and administration, and the occasional incandescent PR moment or two. And a major profile in this week's NY Magazine lends even more credence to the idea, as it contributes a sweeping portrait of the Dunkin' Donuts- and iPad-loving, former Marine Corps. veteran who "radiates power."
The profile paints Kelly as a micromanaging General, one whose style is to "control everything he can control" (a spiritual cousin to Bloomberg's business-management credo). He runs the NYPD with militaristic zeal which has both its proponents—Thomas Reppetto, author of NYPD: A City and Its Police, calls him "the greatest police commissioner in the history of the city. He invented the playbook on terrorism from scratch"—and detractors—the NYCLU's Donna Lieberman calls him "Master of PR" and says the NYPD "has taken on the aura of an occupying force." Former detectives fear speaking out against him, let alone current ones ("he has a long arm" one unidentified officer said), and police leaks are hunted down unmercifully ("Among rank-and-file cops, talking to a reporter has become a career-ending liability.")
Then there are the points that nod toward his Mayoral-aspirations: details on his nonprofit New York City Police Foundation that funds many of his projects (including his CIA-like International Liaison Program) and hired marketing company HL Group in 2007 ostensibly to revamp the NYPD's (and maybe burnish Kelly's) image for $8,500/month. And there are reports of meetings with Republican strategist Scott Reed last year before Bloomberg decided to run for a third term—while NYPD spokesman Paul Browne claims Kelly and Reed just bumped into each other one, "a source close to Reed says the two met at the behest of a mutual friend 'to see what [a campaign] might look like.'"
