The Doppelganger

Michael Mulgrew, who will succeed Randi Weingarten as UFT president following the latter's resignation today, is already being positioned as the anti-Randi. This is reminiscent of John McCain's attempt to paint himself as the anti-Bush, the Maverick, while everyone knew that if you scratched that paint, you'd see the Bush beneath (which sounds somewhat like a porno movie title).

Gotham Schools gave Mulgrew a fresh coat today, saying that Mulgrew also couldn’t be more different from Weingarten. Tall and apple-cheeked, he has the physical presence of Mr. Clean (both shave their heads) and a quiet charm. “Women seem to like him,” noted one union member.

Well, OK. He looks not a bit like Randi. But my fear is not that he is Randi's physical double, but her philosophical Doppelganger. It seems unlikely that Randi would groom a successor who was not in her own image. Only time will tell, but with a new contract looming, I'm not terribly sanguine. I say we give him the summer to establish himself as something other than Randi's puppet.