Lhota Wants You to Know: No, I'm Not Giuliani, I'm a Businessman

As Republican Joe Lhota filed paperwork today to run for New York City mayor, he stressed he would be different from his former boss, Mayor Rudy Giuliani. "I am a completely different person from Mayor Giuliani both on personality, on approach, on education and background. I'm not an attorney, I'm a businessman,” Lhota told every reporter he granted a debut interview for, on Thursday.

 “I’m going far beyond the Giuliani coalition,” he told Colin Campbell from Politicker. “There’s not a community in the city that I won’t go to. There’s not a community in this city that I won’t try to get their votes. This idea of tying me to Giuliani is quite unique. I know Rudy Giuliani. I like Rudy Giuliani. I worked with him during his administration. But we’re completely different people. “

"It's not something I voluntarily brought up," Lhota told Azi Paybarah. The comment about being "completely different" from Giuliani was "in response to a question" from the reporter, who asked him how different he was," he said.

Nonetheless, Lhota pointed out: "This race isn't about Rudy Giuliani. This race is about me. That is important to get across." 

 "Any campaign that is trying to talk about my candidacy and automatically talking about Rudy Giuliani makes a big mistake in doing that. I am the candidate," he asserted in his conversation with Azi from Capital New York.

 In an interview to NY1 Thursday evening, Lhota made very clear the difference in style between him and Giuliani. "The thing that was important about Joe Lhota when he worked in City Hall is Joe Lhota talked to everybody," Lhota told Grace Rauh. "And I will do the same thing when I run for mayor. I will talk to everybody. We may not necessarily agree, but that doesn't mean we can't have an open and civil dialogue. And that's going to be at the core of, that's at the core of who I am, and it's going to be at the core of the campaign."

He also said his party affiliation won't be a problem. "New Yorkers don't vote for mayor based on their political label," Lhota said. "They vote for mayor based on the person. Who are they, what are they going to do for the city, how are they going to help the city of New York, how are they going to help that individual and that family continue to live and thrive in the city of New York. And that's what this race is going to be about."