As a Conservative and Republican Candidate for Mayor, Joe Lhota doesn’t know whether he wants to be fish or fowl — When it comes to Tea Party Republicans, mostly the Republican-Conservative mayoral nominee comes off as something foully fishy indeed
In one radio interview Lhota attacked Tea Party Republicans in Congress, backed one of their key demands on Obamacare, which had been raised in the debate of the Continuing Resolution to fund government agencies — and then based on that very same radio interview, was attacked by Bill deBlasio for being a Tea Party Republican
According to a report on the Politicker blog, Republican-Conservative Joe Lhota “...condemns his party’s federal representatives for the partial government shutdown currently gripping Washington...” and at almost the same time, “...endorsed one of their top demands: delaying the individual health care mandate....” ( See “Joe Lhota Backs Obamacare Delay” by Colin Campbell, 10/7/13, NY Observer/ Politicker [http://politicker.com/2013/10/joe-lhota-backs-obamacare-delay/]).
In that article in Politicker, Lhota was quoted as saying specifically, “The shutdown is a disgrace.... It should never have happened. People who go to Washington are elected to govern. What they’re doing is a complete and total absence of governance. They don’t realize how damaging it is going to be to them personally as well as to the party. People need to come to the table and they need to negotiate. This country is about compromise.... I cannot tell you how upsetting it is for me to see 30 extremists in Washington control the entire government. There’s something very, very wrong doing on.”
On another radio program this morning, Mr. Lhota’s opponent Bill de Blasio criticized Lhota for not doing enough to disavow his party’s hardliners. “This is not the first time the Republican party has forced a government shutdown,” said the Democrat nominee for mayor on the ABC 880 AM radio program “The Answer with Curtis Sliwa.” According to deBlasio “[The Republican Party] doesn’t represent values I think most New Yorkers hold. And I think if someone’s a member of that party, they shouldn’t just idly [sit] by and let it move farther and farther to the right.” Then he specifically addressed Lhota’s position on Obamacare “This is unbelievable to me that a guy who says he wants to represent New York City would be taking the Tea Party position on the question of the Affordable Care Act” (See “Bill de Blasio Says Joe Lhota Taking ‘Tea Party View of the World’ ” by Jill Colvin, 10/7/13, NY Observer/ Politicker [http://politicker.com/2013/10/bill-de-blasio-says-joe-lhota-taking-tea-party-view-of-the-world/]).
Later on Monday, the deBlasio Campaign released a statement slamming the Republican nominee Lhota over his position on the individual mandate, as follows: “Joe Lhota says he is a different kind of Republican, but when push comes to shove he sides with the GOP fringe. His endorsement of delaying Obamacare puts him in lockstep with Republican extremists like Ted Cruz — extremists who would rather shut down the government and furlough thousands of New York City workers than see hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers get access to health care. Joe Lhota’s positions might help him with the Tea Party, but they are wrong for New York.”
What is becoming obvious is that Joe Lhota is completely confused as to how to handle his relationship with a conservatively-leaning national and state Republican Party. This has led to an absolutely muddled Lhota message on something as unpopular as Obamacare. As can be seen above this has left Candidate Lhota open to left-wing attacks by his opponent for his alignment with Tea Party Republicans, after Lhota’s having made remarks that are also clearly offensive to his potential Tea Party supporters.
It all comes off looking very fishy.
Etcha Sketch
ReplyDeleteThose famous words, which referred to a classic technical graphic "toy," was made into a political epithet by a BRILLIANT REMARK intentionally made by a CONSULTANT, who was running Romney -- er, ah... the Romney campaign...
DeleteWho are the consultants that are running Lhota -- er, ah... the Lhota campaign ? These guys barely beat Catsimatidis, and are now they are light years behind deBlasio.
Aside from all this, how did anybody think that a Republican-Conservative Candidate, who is barely Republican and not at all in line with anything the Conservatives say they stand for would be a good idea ?
Still no sign of Team Lhota in Brooklyn GOP circles. The olive branch seems to have been extended by the party but ignored by the candidate. Not smart. Cats nearly beat Lhota in Brooklyn among republican voters. He will certainly get blown out if he can't unify his base.
ReplyDeleteIf Lhota unifies his "base" he ends up with 12%.
ReplyDeleteTheres a reason why Guiliani and bloomberg turned down the Conservative line.
They wanted to win, and they did.
Let's forget the FACT that your math is way off, based on past results...
DeleteLhota DOES HAVE the Conservative Party line. He made his deal with Mike Long, and he made his deal in Brooklyn with Jerry Kassar. What was the DEAL that Lhota made with the Conservaitives?
For their part, what kind of deal was made by Mike Long and Jerry Kassar on behalf of THEIR Conservative Parties with a liberal-libertarian style Republican who FAVORS a woman's right to abort her baby, FAVORS gay marriage and FAVORS the legalization of pot ?
First, the New York State Conservative Party Chairman, Michael Long, needs to explain why these Social Conservative issues are NOT relevant to the office of mayor, and should not be part of a mayoral campaign; because Long's handpicked candidate for mayor, Joe Lhota, seemed to put those very issues up front early in his campaign -- and his positions are opposite to what real conservatives believe.
One suspects that Long and Kassar made a deal that's something similar to their immoral deal that they had with liberal Republican George Pataki, a sell-out for patronage.
The public has a right to know >>> WHAT WAS THE LHOTA DEAL WITH THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY TO GET THEIR LINE ? ? ?
SO FAR IT LOOKS LIKE A LHOTA SH-T COVERING THE TRIO OF LHOTA, LONG AND KASSAR...
RELEVANT OPINION:
ReplyDeleteACCORDING TO THOMAS SOWELL — REPUBLICANS LIKE HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER ARE LOSING THE ARGUMENT BECAUSE THEY ARE “INARTICULATE”
THAT ALL APPLIES TO THE PRESENT REPUBLICAN-CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE FOR MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY, JOSEPH LHOTA
Thomas Sowell gave us all a very simple and understandable example of why Republicans are usually on the losing side of arguments — the government shutdown is no exception. Here’s some of what he had to say: “If the continued existence of mathematics depended on the ability of the Republicans to defend the proposition that two plus two equals four, that would probably mean the end of mathematics and of all the things that require mathematics. *** Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, epitomized what has been wrong with the Republicans for decades when he emerged from a White House meeting last Wednesday, went over to the assembled microphones, briefly expressed his disgust with the Democrats’ intransigence and walked on away....” (See “INARTICULATE REPUBLICANS” by Thomas Sowell, 10/8/13, Human Events [http://www.humanevents.com/2013/10/08/inarticulate-republicans/]).
Sowell went on to specifically criticize the GOP’s leading spokesman in the current confrontation with President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Reid, as follows: “We are in the midst of a national crisis, immediately affecting millions of Americans and potentially affecting the kind of country this will become if ObamaCare goes into effect — and yet, with multiple television network cameras focused on Speaker Boehner as he emerged from the White House, he couldn’t be bothered to prepare a statement that would help clarify a confused situation, full of fallacies and lies. *** Boehner was not unique in having a blind spot when it comes to recognizing the importance of articulation and the need to put some serious time and effort into presenting your case in a way that people outside the Beltway would understand. On the contrary, he has been all too typical of Republican leaders in recent decades.”
When it comes to the current Republican and Conservative Candidate for Mayor Joe Lhota, this article by Mr. Sowell is especially salient and poignantly apropos. As my post above clearly indicates, Lhota has a serious problem with messaging — like I said, everything being said by the Lhota Campaign is “...[t]urning into a Big Pile of Steaming Gibberish” — as a result Lhota has had no traction in the polls (See my earlier post “Things are looking worse and worse for GOP-Conservative Party Candidate for Mayor Joe Lhota” posted below on Sunday, October 6, 2013).
A candidate whose message is garbled, or who verbally steps on his own categories and definitions, sometimes in the very use and meaning of his words themselves, is a candidate who is without a voice that can be clearly heard by the voters. I’m sure that Thomas Sowell would agree that Joseph Lhota has that problem.
UPDATE: LHOTA’S BIG BACKERS ARE TELLING LHOTA: THE PROBLEMS JOE ARE NOT IN OUR STARS, BUT IN OUR SELVES
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Wall Street Journal, “Joe Lhota's supporters are increasingly resigned to the prospect of the Republican nominee losing the New York City mayoral race as he struggles to gain traction, faces wide deficits in campaign cash and is down in public polls. *** Ken Langone, the 78-year-old billionaire Home Depot Corp. founder and one of Mr. Lhota's biggest financial backers, said he is convinced Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, the Democratic mayoral nominee, will defeat Mr. Lhota in the Nov. 5 election....” ( See ““Lhota Backers Losing Hope – Republican Mayoral Candidate Trails by Wide Margins in Fundraising, Polls” by Michael Howard Saul & Derek Kravitz, 10/8/13, Wall Street Journal [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303442004579123772187949860.html]).
Mr. Langone’s views on the Lhota Campaign have the ring of truth about them. Any contrary views contained in the article, like those of Lhota’s top campaign officials, simply don’t have a truthful tone to them, but rather they seem like so much PIE IN THE SKY.