With the Reverend Al Sharpton's silence rented over the past decade by the Bloomberg administration—who can forget his national education tour with then-Chancellor Joel Klein, the latest in a series of odd couple acts made to give lazy reporters an easy hook for the endless "new man" stories about him? MSNBC is now paying him to make noise on other issues. Sharpton did help bring down the last three Democratic mayoral nominees—encouraging voters to stay home in 2001 after Mark Green beat Freddy Ferrer in the Democratic primary, offering a half-assed, arms-length endorsement of Ferrer in 2005 and an even more tepid backing to Bill Thompson in 2009. Like it or not, Sharpton looks to again embrace his role as king-killer as the 2013 mayoral race heats up. The candidate with the most to gain from his silence or to lose if he gets into the mix might end up being City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the mayor's apparent pick as his successor.