Advance blows a hole in Joe Lhota’s Staten Island Ferry Boat

In what could have been a great day for the Lhota campaign, the Staten Island Advance endorsed Bill deBlasio

For New York City Republicans all that is left until Election Day is a mopping up operation  —  not in any military sense  —  but as in cleaning up after a major catastrophe  

The headline reads, “Staten Island Advance endorses Bill de Blasio for mayor”; the lengthy column that followed was almost all an anti-climax. For me, the following background or historical context is important enough to note: “In the past, this newspaper has endorsed both Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg for mayor. Joe Lhota, a deputy mayor in the Giuliani administration, would seem the logical choice for us to support this time around.... However, he was not the leader of Mr. Giuliani’s team.... Mayor Giuliani had the vision of making our city safe, and he succeeded in taking us out of the dark days of the late 1980s. ***  Mayor Bloomberg, who led us out of the nightmare of 9/11 with a steady hand, pushed to make the city a safer, healthier and more technologically and culturally advanced place, as well as a mecca for tourists; no one can deny that he succeeded, whatever the criticisms of his tenure. ***  We believe Bill de Blasio has that same kind of grand-scale vision. That’s why we gladly endorse him for mayor....” (See “Staten Island Advance endorses Bill de Blasio for mayor” by the Staten Island Advance Editorial Board, 10/31/13 [http://www.silive.com/opinion/editorials/index.ssf/2013/10/for_mayor_bill_de_blasio.html#comments]).

 I put it to you, that it is a fair inference to conclude that the Editorial Board of the Staten Island Advance did not see “that same kind of grand-scale vision” from Joe Lhota or his 2013 campaign for Mayor of New York City.

Sadly for the Lhota Campaign, the Advance endorsement rained all over what was perhaps the single biggest positive news event and morale boost for the pro-Lhota folks since the primary victory over John Catsimatidis. The Federal Court of Appeals ruling reinstating the so-called “stop and frisk” policing tool was a major victory for Lhota and his “Law and Order” message  (See “Joe Lhota Cheers NYPD Stop And Frisk Ruling” by Celeste Katz, 10/31/13, Daily News/Daily Politics [http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2013/10/joe-lhota-cheers-nypd-stop-and-frisk-ruling]).

For the NYC GOP there are just four or five days left to find any scrap of dignity or respectability, or to look for any silver lining of any sort, in a 2013 General Election campaign that has been pretty dismal, indeed. In Brooklyn there are still some matches  where the outcome is not yet “out of the wood”; and a few strikes can be made and spares picked-up in the final frames.