"...yeah, the blackout was basically it for Beame. All that looting, vandalism... you could say that was probably the nadir, right on the heels of Ford basically telling the city to fuck off. Yeah, no, I know the headline was "Drop Dead," but still. It really crystallized for the city too that the Republicans hated our guts. Hated the city. Ford in that press conference sounded smug, dismissive... not a good look. And I think in the end that's what helped position us for the primary, because Ed [Koch] was generally on pretty good terms with the administration, and we found our wedge there. The GOP had a good relationship with the Italian community, with some of the white ethnics, and that press conference really blew things our way, even if the primary was razor tight before the runoff..."
- Senator Andrew Cuomo, Interview for "New York '77: 25 Years Later", ABC News, 2002
"...if there was one incidence I could take back, one moment where I thought "This is a mistake," it would be the President's press conference after the New York blackout. We all know that the media has a certain... shall we call it, "method" of portraying Republicans. Jerry didn't need to comment on it, but New York and its troubles had been headlines for years. The Seventies were rough in the city. There was heat on the right thanks to restarting the Panama talks, which George did WAY too publicly, the economic package was stagnating as we negotiated with Congress, which Jerry insisted on taking the lead on, as if he were back on the Hill... he hated the way Reagan and other Republicans were criticizing him, that he wasn't getting his honeymoon after winning the election. I think he just wanted to sound tough. I sympathized. But going off the cuff on New York that way, the way he described the city, its leadership, it flew close to basically saying that the people there had brought it on themselves. The media coverage was ugly. A few sentences, that's all I would have said. Not the whole screed, not the testy answers to questions from Dan Rather. That was a landmine we didn't need to step on."
- Former Vice President Robert Dole, 2007
"...let President Ford come down here and see the empty buildings in the burnt Bronx while he proposes cutting taxes for his millionaire friends; let President Ford go to the struggling stores owned by working families on Jamaica Avenue, as he talks about deregulating major corporations; let him walk up and down Times Square, and Broadway, and Flatbush Avenue, and tell the people who can't afford to put a roof over their heads or food on the table that it's just too bad! Maybe if he understood this city he'd think different!"
- Governor Hugh Carey, Cuomo For Mayor Rally, July 2nd, 1977
"...the whole ordeal really sparked something in Hugh, too. He'd worked with the Ford administration in '75, really thought he was being an honest broker, was working really hard to save the city... and then Ford basically comes out and gives him the finger in public. Hugh took it personally. I'd never seen him like that before."
- Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "New York '77: 25 Years Later", ABC News, 2002