A year ago, when Mayor Bloomberg was pleading his case to the City Council for why they should be so bold as to overturn the term-limits law passed twice by popular referendum, one of his counselors pointed out "that the 586,890 people who formed the majority in a 1996 referendum represented a trifling 17 percent of all registered voters in the city." Well, this Tuesday, Mayor Bloomberg won a third term with 557,059 votes, or 13 percent of registered voters. Bloomberg called it "as close to a mandate as I think you can possibly come in a very difficult time." Well played, Clyde Haberman! [NYT]