Jumaane Williams Announces Foolish Mayoral Bid

NEW YORK CITY -- He'd be a fool to run. Public Advocate startled a good number of his Twitter followers Monday, April 1, by announcing he would be dashing to Iowa to discuss vegan cafes as part of his bid to become New York City's next mayor.

"I like running and I've gotten pretty good at it," Williams stated in a press release. "I'll have my hands full running in this years Public Advocate primary in June and general election in November, but after that I'm ready to dive in."

You get where this is going, right?

"Happy April Fools Day," the fake press release concludes.

Williams' fake announcement begins with straightforward language one expects of a politician's press release then slowly starts getting weird.

City Councilman Brad Lander's statement, for example, is simply, "He's running for what? Mayor? Sure, count me in."

The announcement takes jabs at the media, noting our tendency to call the Public Advocate's seat a stepping stone to City Hall even though it's happened one time, and the Mayor's recent flirtations with a presidential bid.

"Williams is not expected to immediately begin campaign events, first taking a trip to Iowa to discuss the prevalence of corn products in vegan cafes," the release reads.

Finally the presser rolls through a very long chain of special elections Williams' win would trigger, which it may be too be soon to joke about in Flatbush: his former City Council district is facing another special election.

Williams' phony presser went up at about 1:20 p.m. and has since been seen by about 200 people, some of whom caught the joke and others who didn't.

"Please don’t," wrote Jan Combopiano. "NYC deserves officials who want to make a difference for NY, & who are willing to do the boring prose of the work itself, not people who just like the poetry of the race."

"Read the last paragraph," wrote Arielle Schwartz. "It's an April fools joke."

Replied Combopiano, "Thank god."