This Bill de Blasio is one ripe specimen

Ever heard of New York Communities for Change?  It's the reconstituted NYC chapter of the old ACORN.  The mayor-elect spoke at its fundraiser last night.  He and the other speakers and the crowd were pretty excited about a new era dawning (actually, darkness descending is a far more apt metaphor) for the city:

The fund-raiser drew hundreds of attendees, including many of the city’s political elite, allowing for the awkward collision of the Democratic powers-that-be and the strident, anti-establishment rhetoric of some of the event’s speech-makers. Chris Shelton, a vice president with the Communication Workers of America, urged the attendees noshing on brie cheese to join a “revolution” against the “bankers, billionaire and brokers of Wall Street.”

In particular, the fund-raiser honored the late Jon Kest, a founder NYCC who also helped launch the WFP, and served as a coming-out party for the city’s many liberal activists feeling emboldened by Mr. de Blasio’s ascension. Staunch de Blasio allies like George Gresham, the president of the powerful healthcare workers’ union, and Sex and the City actress Cynthia Nixon were honored, too, as well as Mr. de Blasio himself.

“We are in a progressive moment right now,” declared East Harlem Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, an early endorser of Mr. de Blasio and a leading candidate for council speaker. “This honoree [Mr. de Blasio] represents the culmination of Jon’s tireless, brilliant and visionary work to build our city’s progressive infrastructure and to build coalitions across groups that made our movement stronger … It was this infrastructure that was built that just about a month ago enabled our city to elect its first progressive Democratic mayor in 20 years, our Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio.”

There were also political subtexts: Mr. de Blasio hugged Ms. Mark-Viverito as he took to the podium in the drab, sprawling conference room. Insiders have long speculated that Ms. Mark-Viverito, a liberal firebrand, is Mr. de Blasio’s favored candidate for the city’s second most powerful post–and Mr. de Blasio added fuel to the fire in his remarks

At one point, he heralded her as a “wonderful, progressive visionary” and noted that she was the first sitting council member to endorse him “and that was in the lean times before things got quite so interesting. I am deeply appreciative of her commitment to progressive causes and all she’s done for this city.”

Still, Mr. de Blasio reserved much of his praise for NYCC, a community organizing group once known as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. ACORN, which fought for liberal causes like raising the minimum wage and ending predatory lending, disbanded several years ago after an embarrassing scandal dried up its funding streams.

Recognize the odor wafting off this little gathering?  It's the same stench that emanated from the Chicago leftist network of the 1990s that gave us the Most Equal Comrade.