The five New Yorkers who could clean up Mayor de Blasio’s mess

These five New Yorkers should campaign to replace Mayor de Blasio ASAP

IN February, Mayor Bill de Blasio called on New Yorkers to “save our city.” But — as his dangerously inadequate response to the coronavirus reminds us — we need to be saved from another mayor like de Blasio.

We’re stuck with him until Jan. 1, 2022. We can’t afford another jerk who tells us to stay home and then goes to the gym.

The time is now to light a fire under people bestqualified to succeed him. None is to be found among current elected officials. For the Big Apple’s salvation, we must look outside the box of knaves and knuckleheads who currently reign in city government.

The first thing a new mayor must display — openly and proudly — is a love for New York City. For Wall Street and Broadway, for our central roles in media and global culture, our museums and parks and sports teams. Boston Red Sox fan de Blasio stuck his thumb in the eyes of our great wealth-makers and institutions from Day One, when one of his inauguration speakers slandered Gotham as a “plantation.”

De Blasio’s successor will have to clean up the mess he’s made and manage a catastrophically damaged economy in the coronavirus’ wake.

It will take a man or woman of extreme conviction and internal fortitude merely to arrest the tailspin. Long before the virus struck, quality of life and street safety plummeted. As of March 8, robbery was up 36 percent and felonious assault rose 11 percent over the first nine weeks of last year. The schools gave free rein to bullies and bigots. Homeless psychotics had the run of our streets.

The touchstones of de Blasio’s ruinous time in City Hall also included rampant corruption, the collapse of public housing, unchecked street squalor, anti-police rhetoric that demoralized the rank-and-file, and laziness so extreme that even the left-wing New York Times called him “New York’s Vanishing Mayor” before he left town altogether last year to run for president.

The handful of elected pols vying to replace de Blasio in next year’s election promise more of the same — or worse. They’re all cut from the same “progressive” cloth, in thrall to special interests and identity politics.

Comptroller Scott Stringer is a teachers union stooge and the “Teacup Yorkie of municipal watchdogs,” as Post columnist Bob McManus described him.

Council Speaker Corey Johnson talks the anti-cop talk and advocates for “help the homeless” programs that would result in more people living on the streets. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams urged transplanted Midwesterners to “Go back to Iowa.” (Code for: “Whites, stay out of black neighborhoods.”)

So we must look beyond machine politics. Neither Rudy Giuliani nor Michael Bloomberg had ever previously held elective office. Both had their faults, but they tamed mayhem on the streets and steered us through 9/11 and the Wall Street crash to an age of unparalleled growth and prosperity.

Here are five New Yorkers of unblemished reputations who enjoy remarkable records in government and/or private sectors. Only one has expressed interest in running for mayor. But the others should as well. Any would make a better mayor than the one we have. And all have a potential for greatness.