Despite canceling presidential forum, de Blasio vows to keep pressing progressive ideas

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that despite the cancellation of his planned presidential forum in Iowa next month, he hasn't given up on getting candidates from both parties to weigh in on his pet progressive issue -- income inequality.

"Fasten your seat belts, and get ready for the long haul," he told reporters when asked after yesterday's Veterans Day parade in Manhattan about Tuesday's cancellation announcement.

Officials with de Blasio's coalition said Tuesday the event was off -- a victim of commitment-adverse candidates. The mayor said despite failing to get a commitment to attend the forum Dec. 6 in Iowa City by any of the Republican or Democratic candidates, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, he'll continue encouraging discussions among them about income disparity.

A spokesman for Clinton's campaign did not return a request for comment yesterday.

De Blasio said the forum at the University of Iowa had been just one of several ideas by his coalition, The Progressive Agenda Committee, or TPAC. But he faced criticism from outside and within his party for directing his attention beyond the city.

Even de Blasio's predecessor at City Hall, Michael Bloomberg got into the act at the Tuesday night Al Smith charity dinner, the annual white-tie campaign pilgrimage at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan for political power players.

Bloomberg told de Blasio and other guests that for the mayor to show up, "his staff told him that the dinner was in Iowa," according to The New York Times.

The mayor laughed at the dig but a day later, he said the candidates -- both Democrat and Republican -- need a campaign reset to discuss ways to fix the type of economic inequality hurting New Yorkers.

"We've got to change the debate, change the political realities," de Blasio said. "so we can get real changes in Washington that will benefit 8.5 million people here."

Though organizers penciled in the event for the starting gate of the 2016 presidential race -- Iowa -- it wasn't enough to lure the candidates to a state most know well.

"It didn't work because we reached out to the candidates and they weren't willing to participate," the mayor said.

With Bloomberg News