Bill Thompson shows up late for events, ruins photo ops by knocking on doors when nobody's home, misspells his own name in press releases, keeps a light schedule despite trailing in the polls, and employs staffers who whine about their jobs on Twitter and Facebook. Supposedly, this is because Mayor Bloomberg used his bottomless wallet to hire every political operative in New York who knows how to run a campaign, forcing Thompson to rely on people with less experience and without, apparently, the ability to use Microsoft Word's spell-check feature. But while disorganization and sloppiness aren't really the attributes you want your campaign to communicate, perhaps it's all part of some genius, esoteric plan:

Campaign workers say that what looks like haphazard planning is actually deliberate; Mr. Thompson hates to be closely managed, or to be trailed by an entourage, so they give him space. The practice makes him unusually accessible to voters, an asset in a race against Mr. Bloomberg, who is surrounded by intimidating bodyguards, and struggles to connect with constituents.

Yeah, Bloomberg is struggling all right. All that scrupulously efficient management is really destroying his campaign.

Bloomberg Foe’s Campaign Shows Lax Management [NYT]