Nosferatu has returned for another round of fear-mongering:
http://blogs.wsj.com/...
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani criticized the public safety policies of Bill de Blasio Tuesday, saying the Democratic mayoral front-runner subscribes to an “anti-police ideology” and warning the city could see the higher crime levels of Chicago under his leadership.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal after a breakfast speech on security in Manhattan, Mr. Giuliani delivered some of his sharpest words yet on Mr. de Blasio–who holds a 40-point lead, according the recent polls, over Joe Lhota, the Republican candidate and a former deputy mayor under Mr. Giuliani.
“I think it comes more from this very left-wing ideology, which is an anti-police ideology,” the former mayor said of Mr. de Blasio’s support for limitations on police tactics such as stop, question and frisk.
“I mean, this guy’s been arrested a number of times. … Most of it shows an anti-establishment attitude, which means anti-police. This is a tough guy for the cops to say, ‘This guy’s got our back,’” he said.
Mr. Giuliani added: “The only hope we have is that de Blasio’s just saying these things to get elected and he’ll change if he should win. Or the other hope we have is the city will vote for Joe Lhota.”
Dan Levitan, a spokesman for Mr. de Blasio, said in a statement: “It’s more of the same old right wing fear-mongering from Joe Lhota’s number one supporter. There’s no contradiction between being pro-police and pro-community, something Rudy Giuliani never learned.” - Wall Street Journal, 10/1/13
de Blasio's opponent, Joe Lhota (R) is also stepping up his attacks by claiming de Blasio's been MIA from the campaign:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/...
The Republican nominee in the New York mayoral race accused his opponent Tuesday afternoon of riding out the last five weeks of the general election — and maintaining high poll numbers — by keeping his campaign schedule light and his name out of headlines.
During this summer’s crowded, competitive Democratic primary, de Blasio would pack his daily schedules with meet-and-greets, speeches, forums, and press conferences from early morning to late at night. But since besting his primary rivals last month, and avoiding a run-off election with just over 40% of the vote, de Blasio has embraced a more limited day-to-day routine. Some days his campaign schedules no public events at all.
“This is reminding me of Where’s Waldo?” Lhota said in an interview Tuesday afternoon. “Where is he!”
“I understand the strategy — it’s a Rose Garden strategy,” Lhota said. “Sometimes it works, most times it doesn’t. He’s husbanding his lead in the polls. I’m not sure I agree with the polls as much as he agrees with them, but I understand what he’s doing.” - BuzzFeed, 10/1/13
But de Blasio has been hitting back with the best attack: reminding people that Lhota is a Republican:
http://politicker.com/...
Bill de Blasio’s campaign is linking Joe Lhota to the Tea Party Republicans, trying to wrap him up in the partial federal government shutdown and all the bad things that have come with it.
Throughout the day, Mr. de Blasio’s campaign has repeatedly highlighted the shutdown–the result of gridlock after Republicans demanded concessions from President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform law in exchange for continuing to fund the government.
On social media, Mr. de Blasio’s campaign has rebranded its accounts to be Obamacare-themed and has been shooting barbs at Mr. Lhota, linking him to conservatives in Washington and the impacts of the shutdown.
“Joe Lhota’s Tea Party friends have shut down the government. This includes shutting down the Statue of Liberty,” reads one image being circulated on Twitter.
Mr. de Blasio also launched an attack Tumblr today that includes a list of “what happens to New Yorkers when Joe Lhota’s Tea Party friends shut down the government.” - Politicker, 10/1/13
But of course Lhota is trying to convince voters that he's not a Tea Party guy by condemning his own party:
http://www.nydailynews.com/...
Lhota was having none of it Tuesday afternoon, denouncing members of his own party in Congress for orchestrating the shutdown and saying he has always considered the Tea Party destructive extremists.
"I think what they're doing is flat out wrong,” he said of House Republicans, describing them as “extremists” who “hold the government and the people of this country hostage” to get their way.
“Anybody who wants to tag me with what's going on in Washington I think is going to be making a very big mistake. Not all Republicans believe what’s going on is the right thing to do,” he said, singling out . “What they’re doing is outrageous and wrong.”
Lhota said the Republicans were wrong to demand the defunding of Obamacare as a condition of keeping the government running, but was more wishy washy on his position on the health care law itself. He said he supports “major parts” of the law but has “some issues” with the requirement that all Americans buy health insurance.
He first insisted lack of health care is “not an issue” in New York because “all New Yorkers have health care” since the Health and Hospitals Corporation will care for anyone.
But HHC does charge for its services, and the phenomenon of poor people relying on emergency rooms for their health care and then being unable to pay the bills is part of what the health law was designed to combat. And New Yorkers, like people in every other state, will be bound by the requirement to get insurance or face a tax penalty. Pressed on what parts of the bill he disagreed with, Lhota finally said, “I’m not prepared to discuss it.”
As for his meeting with the Staten Island Tea Party, Lhota said “verbally violent” debate on gun control, though he had some sympathy for their views on tax rates in the city.
“I disagree and have consistently disagreed with the Tea Party, and I think they’re a bad force for the Republican party. They’re extremists and they’re moving the party in a direction that I think is wrong,” he said. - New York Daily News, 10/1/13
Lhota threw the first punch by trying to tie de Blasio to Karl Marx and the press has gone along with it. de Blasio hasn't been holding back from going after Lhota for idolozing Barry Goldwater (R. AZ):
And at first de Blasio shunned the whole approach. “It’s 2013. I’d like to note, I’m not going to stoop to Joe Lhota’s level here,” he said. “I am a progressive who believes in an activist approach to government. You can call it whatever the heck you want.”
But de Blasio has been forced to hit back; the media was keeping him on the defense, chasing him, asking did he ever agree with Marxism, why’d he honeymoon in Cuba? Even allies in the press wanted to know, was his support for the Sandinistas merely a “youthful indiscretion,” as someone at a New Yorker lunch asked him. “No, it’s not a youthful indiscretion,” he said, refusing to take the cowardly way out. “The reason I got involved, was because of United States foreign policy.”
But for some reason, the press isn’t on Lhota’s tail to explain his adulation of Goldwater, much less are they grilling him on if we should we nuke Syria or whether he’d vote against the Civil Rights Act (not a far-fetched question given the Supreme Court’s gutting of section 4 of the Voting Rights Act). The Times certainly didn’t ask him such questions, nor would it occur to most reporters to do so. This is a case of the media not making false equivalencies but habitually failing to notice actual equivalencies. Politicians’ involvement in left-wing causes stimulates media hormones more than the right-wing ones do. Partly that’s because the center has moved rightward. But even if it hadn’t, America’s red-baiting, McCarthyite past still has the power to taint.
For whatever reason, ventures into lefty world are treated like a dirty bad act, and they produce a kind of slut-shaming. Maybe the body politic needs to believe that it contains something just too awful to fully accept.
De Blasio may become not just NYC’s most progressive mayor but the first big-name pol to break that bleary, dreary mindset. - The Nation, 10/1/13
Expect more fear-mongering attacks from Lhota Giuliani and the GOP this month. They're desperate to win this race but we are not going to let them scare New Yorkers out voting for real change. Click here if you want to donate or get involved with de Blasio's campaign:
http://www.billdeblasio.com/