Labor Day has come and gone but with the Sept. 10 primaries less than a week away, the city’s major candidates for the coveted office of mayor took no break from increasingly pointed attacks on one another online, in-print as well as in-person.
At the recent West Indian Day Parade in Brooklyn, both Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson took turns attacking Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who is currently leading in the polls.
Quinn slammed de Blasio over a recent New York Times story that raised questions about de Blasio amending his signature proposal to fund universal pre-K services. “We also saw this past week that the public advocate in his signature proposal to improve education for children had his math wrong … If you’re mayor, you’ve got to make sure you’re overseeing the city’s money in an ethical, competent way–and that you know how to add,” Quinn said.
Thompson, in between mingling with supporters at the parade on Labor Day, took the opportunity to accuse de Blasio of flip-flopping on the issue of term limits.
“Bill de Blasio continues to say one thing and do something else… politically-expedient for him,” Thompson said. “It isn’t anything new. It goes back to looking at a Bill de Blasio that supported the term limit change by the City Council, back to the same Bill de Blasio that was in favor of member items when he was a member of the City Council, but against it later.”
And, following Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral debate, where the front-running de Blasio was again attacked by his opponents, state Sens. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) and James Sanders Jr. (D-Laurelton) and Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito (D-Manhattan) issued the following response:
“Despite his opponents’ desperate and misleading attacks, tonight Bill de Blasio proved once again that he is the only candidate in the race who will bring progressive change to New York City. As mayor, de Blasio will fight for middle and working-class New Yorkers by ending the overuse and abuse of stop-and-frisk, and providing universal pre-K and expanded after school programs by asking the rich to pay a little more in taxes.”
In the past, de Blasio has frequently attacked Quinn for her close ties and support of Bloomberg policies, including the controversial stop and frisk which she has criticized but has not sought to eliminate.
De Blasio has also recently blasted Quinn, claiming she has simultaneously accepted campaign contributions from major fast food companies such as McDonald’s and KFC while also publicly declaring her support to help increase wages and overall living conditions for fast food workers.
And, while City Comptroller John Liu, who previously represented Flushing in the Council, has not engaged in overly aggressive attacks on other candidates, he has made statements declaring that since stop and frisk was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge last month, the Bloomberg administration should “stop fighting” the ruling and proceed with implementing community policing. Liu has pledged that if elected, he would completely end stop and frisk in the city.
John Catsimatidis, the successful businessman behind the Red Apple Group, a diversified corporation with holdings in the energy, aviation, retail and real estate sectors which employs approximately 2000 people here in the city, has positioned himself as a candidate who “gives back,” and is also a strong supporter of small businesses in the city.
Most recently, Catsimatidis jumped onto the attack bandwagon when he highlighted a statement made by candidate Joe Lhota, a former budget director with the Giuliani Administration as well as MTA Chairman.
Lhota was widely quoted – and vilified – in the New York Post and Daily News as saying he would not have stopped city subway trains for some kittens which were loose recently on the tracks in the subway system. On Twitter, Catsimatidis repeatedly referred to himself as the “cat-friendly” candidate.
Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, who was at one time ahead in the polls, may have been irreparably damaged by his “sexting” scandal that forced him from office in 2011 and continued to plague his campaign for mayor up until very recently when one of the women he had exchanged racy pictures and messages with stepped forward, rekindling his transgressions anew.
Weiner, who continues to emphasize his issues-based campaign focusing on education and helping the middle class, is currently running last in the most recent Quinnipiac University poll, taken following Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral debate.
By Alan Krawitz
