For the first time in his three campaigns for mayor, former Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer has a clear shot at unseating the Republican incumbent.

In 1997, Ferrer pulled out of the primary after a poorly financed start. In 2001, he lost a bitter runoff to Mark Green.

Now that the Board of Elections has certified that Ferrer broke the 40 percent mark and can avoid the distraction of a runoff (which may have been required even though runner-up Weiner conceded the morning after the election), he can spend the next seven weeks making the case for why he would be a better mayor than Mike Bloomberg.

He’ll need every second of that time, because Bloomberg can spend whatever it takes from his personal fortune to saturate the airwaves and because he is a popular incumbent.

Ferrer will have to run a gaffe-free campaign and avoid the flip-flops (on the death penalty, on indictments for officers involved in the Diallo shooting) that have dogged his campaigns in the past.

We hope Ferrer will also show at least a little independence from the Bronx Democratic machine, which has made some terrible choices in the last couple of years, like supporting the construction of a mammoth filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park and the plan to serve frozen meals to senior citizens in order to reward a social service agency friendly to Democratic leaders. Last year, Ferrer announced his opposition to the Meals-on-Wheels reorganization even as his political allies in the borough were championing it.
We hope there’s more where that came from.

Ferrer can be proud of the fact that he presided over the Bronx’ remarkable resurgence from the hellish arson and abandonment that swept through a large chunk of the borough in the 1970s and the rampant political corruption that immediately preceded his taking office. Ferrer’s detractors may point out that many city leaders and community organizations participated in that rebirth, but Ferrer was the borough’s booster-in-chief at that critical time and he certainly would have gotten the blame if it had gone the other way.

But the campaign will be more about what Ferrer can do for the city now. He will have to be bold in presenting his ideas in a way that resonates with voters and credibly contrast them with the record of an incumbent mayor who seems to have the wind at his back.

We look forward to what is sure to be a spirited debate about the future of our city.