83), pointing out that Moses amassed his influence by accumulating positions "that often initially appeared to be of little importance," such president of the Long Island State Commission and commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks (86).
Moses knew how to trade information and contracts for power, and because he held such a variety of positions having different source of power, "people were reluctant to fight him in any one place, knowing he could exact retribution in some other arena" (86). Moses acknowledged to his associates that "As long as you're fighting for parks, you can be sure of having public opinion on your side...You can't lose," and he indeed received so much attention from the press and the public that he became "politically untouchable. No mayor or governor dared oppose him" ("Robert Moses"). Roosevelt was a bitter political enemy, but even he as president and "at the zenith of his own popularity and prestige" failed in his attempt to remove Moses and "was forced to retreat by the storm of acclaim and support for Moses that came not only from New York, but from all across the country" ("Robert Moses").
In 1933, Moses leveraged his "enormous public popularity" in support of La Guardia for mayor of New York City in exchange for the appointment to New York City park commissioner upon La Guardia's election ("Robert Moses"). Moses later wrote that he was only interested in taking the city job if he would have "unified power over all the city parks, and even then, only as part of unified control of the whole metropolitan system of parks and parkway development" ("Robert Moses"). Through his ties to La Guardia, Moses achieved and obtained funding for his projects. He had revenue streams derived from the Triborough Bridge Commission, which he headed, using them to "support the sale of bonds to fund his building programs without answering to the legislative bodies which normally controlled...