DN Columnist Lupica: Ratner's money tree grows in Brooklyn

Subject: DN Columnist Lupica: Ratner's money tree grows in Brooklyn

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/356232p-303612c.html
Ratner's money tree grows in Brooklyn
by Mike Lupica

[excerpts]

Ratner is just smarter than Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff was with his vision for a new West Side, built around a football stadium. Ratner does not try to hide one of the sweetheart real estate deals in the history of New York City behind the Olympics. Instead, he spreads money all over the borough, trying to buy influence and loyalty, acting as if this is all about jobs when it is mostly about highly profitable luxury housing.

Along the way, he allows this idea to grow exponentially along with his con:

That since he has so many blacks in Brooklyn with him, it must be the borough's gentrified whites who are against him. In this case, race is much more productive for him than the 2012 Summer Games. This has nothing to do with Ratner's slogan about "jobs, housing and hoops." No, this is Karl Rove's blueprint for how you get things done, right out of the Bush White House: Divide and conquer.