It must be funny to not read your own link. Had you done that you'd be faced with the buzzkill that deBlasio didn't "liken" himself to any of those guys, and you creamed your jeans over a bullshit headline.
The intelligent folks at The Week wrote the headline, not me. And clearly he certainly did liken himself to those figures.
"We speek Engrish heer, Meester!"
Uh ---- nnnnno, he doesn't. Go ahead and try to quote it.
“I want to talk to anyone who thinks that and tell them they need to start thinking more. I mean, give me a break. So every time someone tries something and it doesn't work, it invalidates anything else they might do going forward? Tell Thomas Edison that, and Henry Ford, tell Mahatma Gandhi. How many people fell on their faces along the way trying things, experimenting with things, had setbacks? There's no leader who hasn't had setbacks."