Ever wonder why so many liberal politicians support public subsidies for professional sports stadiums? Here is one reason:

More than a dozen black and Hispanic leaders endorsed the West Side football stadium yesterday amid a “historic” deal with the Jets to ensure that minority- and women-owned firms get a share of the construction contracts.

Jets President Jay Cross said technical and financial assistance the team would provide minority businesses could land them $100 million worth of business.

One speaker after another dismissed critics, saying their concerns can’t outweigh the jobs that will flow from development of the far West Side.

Opponents of the project “don’t need to be in this city,” said Jim Heylinger, president of the Minority Business Leadership Council, citing the double-digit unemployment rate in some communities.

Mayor Bloomberg said the agreement — reached after six months of deliberations by a task force — “signals a new day” because it’ll serve as a template for all major projects in the future.

An embrace of race and gender preferences is to be expected from a RINO like Bloomberg. But Bloomberg isn’t the only Republican who has utilized this tactic. As I noted here more than five years ago, President Bush is culpable too:

Bush’s own official web site … brags about Bush’s role in securing tax dollars for the Texas Rangers baseball stadium.

What’s not mentioned was the governor’s patently offensive, race-based sales pitch. As reported in the June 1999 issue of Texas Monthly, the awarding of minority-earmarked government contracts was instrumental to the stadium measure’s passage. Black and Latino leaders attacked the deal – until Bush assuaged them with the promise of government giveaway goodies. Bush “spoke from the pulpit of the Mount Olive Baptist Church in Arlington,” Texas Monthly reported, where he declared, “A vote for the tax would be a vote for contracts for African American businesses.”