Bill’s wayward journey

It was just over three measly weeks ago that the incumbent mayor of New York City won reelection, with huge promises to complete a historic transformation of America’s largest city into an engine of opportunity. Now comes a nasty bout of political attention deficit disorder — as he packs his bags to jet to Iowa, the nursery of presidential ambition. Hubris, thy name is Bill de Blasio. Perhaps, among the corn stalks, he expects to learn precious lessons about how to control violence run amok on Rikers Island.

Or, on factory farm floors, to discover how to bring down the record number of people flooding into homeless shelters.

Or, in the soybean fields, to get good advice about how to stanch record financial bleeding at the city’s public hospitals so they can continue to serve New Yorkers regardless of ability to pay.

Or, in a state with total population just a wee bit larger than Brooklyn’s, to glean some urgent wisdom about how to build more housing in the densest and most expensive city in America.

De Blasio insists he has no choice but to take a prominent role in national politics, to ensure New York City has friends in high places and allies for a great many fights.

“This is who I am,” he shrugs with tough-luck arrogance.

Some national urban-coalition-building is surely necessary. But the only harvest to be had for de Blasio in this Iowa field of dreams is political — offering himself as the Democratic antidote to Donald Trump in anticipation of the first-inthe-nation presidential caucus. That’s self-serving, not city-serving. Imagine the sale: a man younger than aging progressive savior Bernie Sanders, but similarly obsessed with combating income inequality. With union allies galore, a proven ability to get AfricanAmerican votes, and a track record of driving down crime and expanding free pre-kindergarten.

You can almost feel Hizzoner starting to salivate, all the more because a New York mayor’s rise as a figure in national politics to challenge the New York President would likely mean an ambitious New York governor’s stall, the national stage not being big enough for the both of them.

Except: De Blasio’s claim on a mandate notwithstanding, the city he leads just tepidly reelected him against a next-to-nothing challenger. Though Democrats outnumber Republicans here nearly seven to one, votes for him outnumbered those for Nicole Malliotakis just three to one.

Public schools are limping along, not showing the great gains the mayor promised were in store, and miles away from his promise to get all thirdgraders proficient in reading within 10 years.

The mayor’s pledge to wave his magic wand and level the economic playing field aside, it’s still getting harder and harder to afford to live here.

Not unrelated, the city’s budget has swollen by more than $10 billion, even as economic storm clouds have begun to gather.

And lest we forget: de Blasio, certain to pound the table about the corrosive effects of big money on national politics, pocketed campaign cash from interests with business before the city, then gave them red-carpet access, if not special treatment.

If de Blasio wants to follow the pothole-filled paths of Rudy Giuliani and Bloomberg and offer himself as America’s mayor, it’s his right to try.

But it’s only halftime. His legacy here at home hangs in the balance. The more distracted he gets trying to package and sell it 1,000 miles away, the likelier it is to fall into jeopardy.