-No otherwise his political profile seems rather similar - -he was elected as a nominal Republican but turned out -to be more progressive than was usual for Republicans -of the day. He was also like Bloomberg elected with very -high expectations which in his case were to a large extent -unmet by his administration. He was re-elected in his -second term as a Democrat as I recall too.
Lindsay was not a nominal Republican-- he was a liberal Republican in an era when that breed was dying out. And his shift to the Dems was symbolic of broader shifts, just as the flight of white working class folks to the GOP represented another shift.
Bloomberg was never a Republican until the day he registered to run for office-- it was an electoral fig leaf to allow him to avoid the Dem primary. He represents no particular political trend other than the recent hobby of billionaires to run for office and a particular yen for self-destruction by the Dem candidates in the recent primary fight.
Also, I don't see him coming in with high expectations. Closer to no expectations since no one really knows who the hell he is, despite tens of millions spent on advertising. His election was a sideshow to the attention focused on the World Trade Center.
Now that there is a gaping budget deficit in the city's finances - to the tune of at least $5 billion last I saw - he may emerge with more dramatic definition once he proposes a budget, but so far he is acting pretty conventionally and from a moderate Dem position, especially as far as his appointments to various offices.
-- Nathan Newman