This Is Lhota's Strategy To Beat De Blasio?

Source tells me that GOP oppo research on @deBlasioNYC includes ACORN/UFT connect, WFP/DFS scandal, thin resume of accomplishments.
— Michael Benjamin (@SquarePeg_Dem) September 12, 2013

To which someone on Twitter replies:

.@maggiepolitico GOP's going to go after de Blasio over ACORN and the UFT (who endorsed someone else)? They've so got this.
— Xenocrypt (@xenocryptsite) September 12, 2013

Michael Powell wrote this in the Times:

Erick J. Salgado grabbed 2.4 percent of the Democratic vote, and Randy Credico took 2 percent. Colin Campbell of The New York Observer noted their combined vote total nearly equaled that of the Republican nominee, Joseph J. Lhota.

If the Lhota/GOP strategy against de Blasio is what Michael Benjamin says it is, good luck winning even 40% of the vote.

Hard to see ACORN attacks working in NYC.

The UFT endorsed Thompson in the primary.

Sure, de Blasio has allied with the UFT in the past on some issues, but there's nothing there that I can think of that would sidetrack his candidacy.

Something the political establishment needs to get through their heads - the public doesn't hate the UFT nearly as much as they do!

And the public actually likes teachers.

I don't see how linking de Blasio to the UFT is fatal to him.

The thin resume thing?

Already tried in the Democratic primary.

Didn't work there.

Might work a little better in the general with some independent voters.

But certainly not anywhere near enough to bring Lhota victory.

And the WFP scandal is old news.

Unless they've got something fresh and new, it's not playing in any of the boroughs.

Look, I've said this before.

Joe Lhota is a jerk.

He challenged a 77 year old man to a fight at an MTA board meeting last year.

No, seriously, he did:

He has assailed state officials, the cast of “Jersey Shore” and, as the so-called rat czar under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the city’s outsize vermin population.

On Thursday, Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, turned his attention to another adversary: a member of his own board, whom he accused of lying and challenged twice to “be a man” during an unusually heated exchange at the authority’s monthly meeting.

The board member, Charles G. Moerdler, 77, who served as New York City’s housing and buildings commissioner in the 1960s, responded by saying he would “bring it on,” although his response was rather muted compared with Mr. Lhota’s remarks.

The group was discussing a proposal to reduce the number of board meetings to 8 a year from 11, and add 2 “forum” meetings specifically for the public to address the chairman and the authority’s presidents. The board meetings include public comment periods.

Mr. Moerdler opposed the plan, saying, “We need at this time to increase, not decrease, timely disclosure.”

It did not take long for Mr. Lhota, 57, to pounce. He said he wished Mr. Moerdler would reconsider his position, “since your flawed thinking and the erroneous things that you’ve just said are actually scurrilous.”

Mr. Lhota, who has trumpeted the authority’s transparency, said agency information would be available more frequently under the proposal.


He said Mr. Moerdler’s “blubbering” was “just a waste of time and a waste of effort.”

Mr. Lhota then appeared to allude to a May article in The Daily News in which Mr. Moerdler was accused of using a police-issued placard to park illegally outside the Cornell Club.

“To make statements in public like this, similar to the statement that you made when you only parked in that parking spot for a few minutes when it was documented by camera that it was over four hours — enough of lying to this board,” Mr. Lhota said, at turns pounding his finger on the table.

Mr. Moerdler seemed taken aback. “Mr. Chairman,” he said, “character assassination does not do you credit.”

But he said he “will not challenge” Mr. Lhota, to which the chairman responded, “I wish you would.”

“Be a man,” he said, as the two began speaking over each other. “Be a man.”

“Oh, I’d be happy to do it,” Mr. Moerdler said. “In your words, I will bring it on.”
“Let’s go,” Mr. Lhota said.

Mr. Moerdler said he stood by his opposition to the plan. “With respect, and I say with respect, I find your comments disturbing,” he said. “I will leave it at that.”

“Respect is not mutual,” Mr. Lhota said.

In addition to that exchange, Lhota also cursed at and shoved a reporter back when he was in the Guiliani administration.

These two incidents crystallize Republican nominee in a nutshell (a nuthouse?)

The de Blasio campaign was very savvy during the primary.

Do not think they do not know the loose screws that Lhota has in his head.

Do not think they won't try and provoke a ferret moment from Lhota.

Do not think they will hesitate to bring up Lhota's temperament if necessary and frame him as having all the worst personality attributes of Bloomberg and Giuliani rolled into one - thin-skinned, malicious, arrogant, angry, full of rage, and a bully.

I dunno, maybe that stuff about ACORN and the UFT will play well for Lhota in this general election.

But I don't think so.

You can bet if the de Blasio campaign chooses to have surrogates depict Lhota as a crazy person unfit to be mayor, that will play well.

De Blasio will keep his own message positive and upbeat - his Tale of Two Cities spiel.

But that won't stop some outside groups from doing to Lhota what was done to Quinn.