MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota may have picked the absolute worst day to announce that he was throwing his hat in an already crowded ring of contenders for mayor in 2013. On the same day that the MTA made it's official announcement of a fare increase, Lhota told all that he was resigning his post with an eye on running for the top job at City Hall.

Lhota is riding high off the good press he received for the way the MTA handled the preparations and aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. The trains and buses were given high priority and MTA riders were back to using mass transit relatively quickly. However, in a city full of people with brief memories, it won't be a surprise if Lhota's campaign fizzles out before it even gets started.

Also, if he is basing his campaign on the good memories of New Yorkers, he should hope that every time they buy a MetroCard they forget who was the chairman when the rates were increased.

Lhota has said he will enter the race as a Republican. While the voters in the city have elected two consecutive Rebuplican mayors in Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, make not mistake that New York is a overwhelmingly Democratic city, and the Democrtas would like nothing better than to get one of their own back in the mayor's office.

Expect the party to pull out all the stops in their effort to win back the post, which won't be good for Lhota.

While this is his first time running for office, Lohta is not new to New York politics. He was a deputy mayor in the Giuliani administration, but it will be interesting to see how he fairs now that he is in the spot light.

Recently, Lohta spoke about the difficult job of being mayor. “I know how challenging the job is and how important the job is to all New Yorkers,” he said.

At this point, we're just not sure how realistic it is that it's a job he will ever have.