The Mayor still yields too often in labor negotiations and betrays signs of his earlier bent for indecision; his mayoral opponents next year will not lack ammunition.

But forces opposed to his presidential bid - among them, apparently, Mr. Yeltsin - gummed up that strategy last month by fielding a mayoral opponent, former Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko.

Ladner proceeded to lose against his mayoral opponent.

As the Mayor turned conciliatory, Rudolph Giuliani, his mayoral opponent, cooled his rhetoric a bit.

Dement was succeeded as mayor in 2005 by his administrative assistant and former mayoral opponent from 1989, Lo Walker, the first Republican to hold the city's top executive position.

The Council leaders backed several proposals from Mr. Giuliani to increase spending on education, an area that his Democratic mayoral opponents have charged he has neglected during this term.

The mayor's Democratic mayoral opponents portrayed that as a slap in the face.

Her mayoral opponents have not made it an issue in the campaign, but it does remain an undercurrent.

Council President Tom DeGise, a probable mayoral opponent of Mr. Cavanaugh in the spring, said he opposes the change because it would weaken the council's role.