Recent polls and fund raising filings show that 2013 Republican standard bearer is falling further and further behind
Brooklyn County Leader gives Lhota tepid support — Even Eaton’s kind words show that Lhota needs to do some bridge building and fence mending — AND, most important, Lhota needs to ride herd on his early supporters in Brooklyn if he wants any help from the rest
As reported in the New York Times on Thursday, “With five weeks until Election Day, the race for New York City mayor is shaping up to be a landslide, with Bill de Blasio holding a 50-point lead over his Republican opponent, Joseph J. Lhota, in a poll released on Thursday by Quinnipiac University. *** Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, received the support of 71 percent of likely voters, compared with 21 percent for Mr. Lhota....” (See “De Blasio Has Enormous Lead Over Lhota, Poll Finds” by Thomas Kaplan, 10/3/13, NY Times [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/04/nyregion/de-blasio-has-enormous-lead-over-lhota-poll-finds.html?_r=0]). The polling news was no better on Friday, where the heavy type lead in the Daily News said, “Democrat Bill de Blasio wallops Republican Joe Lhota by 49 points in a Friday New York Times/Siena poll on the race for mayor, leading overwhelmingly even on Lhota's signature campaign issues.” (See “Bill de Blasio Crushes Joe Lhota 68% - 19% In New NYT/Siena NY Mayor's Race Poll” by Celeste Katz, 10/4/13, Daily News/ DailyPolitics [http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2013/10/bill-de-blasio-crushes-joe-lhota-68-19-in-new-nytsiena-ny-mayors-race-poll]).
The word about Lhota’s fund raising is equally grim (See “Bill de Blasio leads Joe Lhota in voter polls and in voter contributions by a huge margin” by Anne Karni & Celeste Katz, 10/4/13, NY Daily News [http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election/de-blasio-leading-polls-article-1.1476978]). The sub-headline of that article says it all: “Mayoral candidates Bill de Blasio and Joe Lhota are in a heated race, but when all is said and done, de Blasio leads Lhota in both race polls and the money wars.” Democratic Candidate for Mayor Bill de Blasio isn’t just burying his GOP rival Joe Lhota in the polls, de Blaiso is trouncing Lhota in the money wars, too. According to the News report, finance records filed on Friday showed that between Sept. 17th and Sept. 30th , Bill De Blasio took in $635,000, while in the same two weeks Joe Lhota raised $280,000. That gives a total for de Blasio of about $1.6 million, compared to Lhota’s total of about $788,000.
Locally, things were looking a little bit better for the Republican and Conservative nominee for mayor. Newly re-elected County Chairman Craig Eaton at least made a formal announcement of support for Mr. Lhota ( See “Catsimatidis backer Eaton now in Lhota’s corner” by Paula Katinas, 10/2/13, Brooklyn Eagle [http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/catsimatidis-backer-eaton-now-lhota%E2%80%99s-corner-2013-10-03-144500]). In the middle of the Daily News report on the same event, which the News characterized merely as a “shout-out from the home GOP team in Brooklyn,” there was also this ominous caveat, “It will be interesting to see how the various party factions ultimately mobilize behind Lhota...” ( See “As Joe Lhota Courts Democrats, Brooklyn GOP Chief Rallies The Party Faithful” by Celeste Katz, 10/2/13, Daily News/ Daily Politics [http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2013/10/as-joe-lhota-courts-democrats-brooklyn-gop-chief-rallies-the-party-faithful]).
JUDGE FOR YOURSELF
A few days ago, Eaton’s remarks about Joe Lhota were cordial, but they were hardly an announcement of an all out “Charge of the Light Brigade” on behalf Joe Lhota by the Brooklyn GOP. Eaton, who was re-elected as County Chairman of the GOP at it’s county convention on Monday, rather than praising and extolling Lhota on Wednesday, was focused instead on the specter of a de Blasio in City Hall as Mayor. Here’s some of what Chairman Eaton had to say: “Republican voters chose Joe Lhota as our nominee, and I will do everything I can to elect Joe in November.” Eaton said that the election of Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio was something "too horrible to imagine ... would reverse all the progress we made during the 20 years of Giuliani and Bloomberg as our mayors ...[leading to] an epidemic of violent crime... [that would] discourage the new economic growth we need to bring jobs back to New York City." With that, the GOP Chairman expressed his hope that Republicans throughout Brooklyn would “join together, to make certain de Blasio does not become our next mayor."
Clearly there needs to be some bridge building and fence mending between Mr. Lhota and the Brooklyn GOP County leadership if he expects any sort of enthusiastic campaigning on his behalf. Needless to say, if there is any semblance of a continued insurgency by Lhota’s supporters in Marty Golden’s “Republicans for Change” crowd, especially in the form of any legal challenges to the results of last week’s GOP convention, Lhota and his campaign can kiss any organized effort or heavy lifting by most of the Eaton-supporting "Brooklyn Republicans" goodbye.
What has Lhota or any top operative of the Lhota Campaign done to reach out to the KCRP leadership or the duly elected Republican leaders of the 46th AD.
ReplyDeleteLhota's Brooklyn operation started out allied with the Marty Golden Cabal of insurgents. Has anything changed?
Eaton has made a public move toward Lhota -- I'm screaming my loudest COCHRANE SCREAM that Lhota needs to RECIPROCATE PUBLICLY ACCEPTING EATON'S OFFER OF SUPPORT AND HIS LEADERSHIP OF THE BROOKLYN GOP.
Accept no support from Eaton, he'll be out in a few days. Stand your ground Joe.
ReplyDeleteIf Lhota follows that kind of advice, he will put up numbers that are completely new to NYC GOP-Conservative Party politics. He'll do even worse than the footnote liberal Republican, Diane McGrath, who was the last liberal Republican to also run on the Conservative Party line.
DeleteLhota's self interest says throw Golden's crowd under the bus.
Marty Golden's chant "we'll win in court!" and even more the people in Golden's corner who picked it up and ran with it like Glen Nocero, they all sound like people who used to shout "the south shall rise again."
DeleteThe Lhota endorsement (a candidate who favors gay marriage and the legalization of pot) will be the undoing of the phony conservatives, who are the Conservative Party Leaders, Jerry Kassar and Mike Long. Watch the Tea Party pivot in New York State to take over the NYS Conservative Party.
ReplyDeleteReal social conservatives need to know that there is a genuine social conservative running for mayor in November 2013 and his name is Erick Salgado..
Joseph Hayon is gunning for Jerry Kassar and his Brooklyn Conservative Party.
ReplyDeleteNobody ever made a buck betting against Hayon. I wouldn't do it now; especially since some of Hayon's hard core enemies are now on his side.
Watch what happens with Joseph Hayon in 2013; and then tell me what you think will happen with Hayon in 2014...
Lhota will soon be turning off the Republican and Conservative base completely with TV ads about supporting gay marriage and legalized marijuana, attending Al Sharpton's Birthday Party and preaching at minority Churches on Sundays.
ReplyDeleteSincere outreach to some minorities that Republicans and Conservatives usually want no part of is smart politics. Pointless pandering in the middle of an election campaign is more than just a waste of time. It is insulting to the minorities, who aren't going to switch to a liberal Republican anytime soon and probably never will to one who has his name under the Conservative Party logo, and it's a smack in the face to the Republican-Conservative base that's already more and more threatened by many of those minorities .
UPDATE: LHOTA TURNS AROUND AND STABS THE STATEN ISLAND TEA PARTY IN THE BACK
ReplyDelete— LHOTA WILLING TO RISK LOSING CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS IN HOPE OF PICKING UP DEMOCRATS AND INDEPENDENTS
— SITP SPOX: “GOOD WILL ... GARNERED FROM THOSE WILLING TO OVERLOOK [LHOTA’S] LACK OF CONSERVATIVE BONA FIDES HAS BEEN SQUANDERED”
According to a Tom Wrobleski article in the Staten Island Advance, “Republican Joe Lhota got himself into a dustup with the Staten Island Tea Party (SITP) last week.... It began when Lhota called Tea Party Republicans in the House ‘extremists’ over the Washington shutdown, saying they were trying to hold the country hostage because of Obamacare.... [T]hen Lhota took it one step further all on his own, telling reporters that he had had a “verbally violent” exchange with SITP members over gun control during that same meeting. *** SITP leaders remembered things far differently, saying that the meeting was free of any verbal violence.... And [even Tom Wrobleski in the SI Advance] reported that Lhota got a good reception that night, scoring points on Second Amendment rights, stop-and-frisk and taxes. *** SITP co-founder Frank Santarpia accused Lhota of trying to distance himself from the Washington shutdown on the backs of the SITP. *** And in a subsequent Facebook posting, co-founder Lorraine Scanni said that ‘any good will that Mr. Lhota has garnered from those who were willing to overlook his lack of conservative bona fides has been squandered.’ *** ‘[Lhota]’s got enough problems out here, he doesn’t need to create more....’ ” (See ““Could Joe Lhota pay at the ballot box for irking Staten Island Tea Party?” by Tom Wrobleski, 10/6/13, SI Advance [http://blog.silive.com/politics/2013/10/could_joe_lhota_pay_at_the_bal.html]).
The Staten Island Tea Party has to have some sense to know when it has been stabbed in the back by the Republican and Conservative Candidate for Mayor Joseph Lhota. Does the Brooklyn Conservative Party that belongs to Jerry Kassar and its Big Brother Boss the New York State Conservative Party that belongs to Mike Long show the similar common sense to the Tea Party? Ever since the primary, candidate Lhota has put much trash and foulness all over these Conservatives’ Parties and what they say they stood for in the past.
DeleteEither Kassar and Long did know that what Lhota was going to do before he did it, and they approved it. Or else, Joseph Lhota stabbed them in the back, with TV ads and printed positions in favor of gay marriage, for women’s complete right to have abortions and to legalize marijuana similar to his Democratic Party opponent Bill Deblasio.
Just a year ago, I remember a very angry Jerry Kassar yelling about how foolish everybody was looking for their petitions and support for Mindy Meyer as the Republican candidate for the state senator against Kevin Parker. Mindy Meyer and her press secretary had mentioned a few non-Conservative Party types of positions, just like the Candidate for Mayor Joseph Lhota has. In 2012 Kassar felt free to yell insults at those who introduced and backed Mz. Meyer, but in 2013 he is not screaming insults at the stupidity of himself, and both of his bosses Mike Long and Marty Golden for giving their petitions and support for Mister Lhota.
Before election day this year, members of Brooklyns’ Conservative Party will see to it that there is a Candidate for Mayor who does hold to their socially conservative views on Marriage and the Family, and law and order. The name for that Candidate for Mayor will be “ERICK SALGADO”.