Lhota Hits Catsimatidis's Irrational Exchange; Catsimatidis Campaign: Rude Crowd

Catsimatidis's ballistic exchange Sunday with a few Brooklyn Republican voters, didn't seem to bother the Republican Mayoral Hopeful. “These people are used to dealing with people who don’t have courage. I am used to confrontation. I don’t blink," he told Celeste Katz of The Daily News.

In Harlem where he grew up, he argued, buls***t is considered “a very mild-mannered expression.”

"It was not meant as a curse word. It was meant as ‘a lot of manure,’” he said.

Rob Ryan, Catsimatidis's campaign spokesman, said Catsimatidis acted accrding to the overall tone of the event: “These were people who were [shouting] him down. The level of rudeness was unbelievable.”

For Republican Joe Lhota, the incident didn't fare well for Republican primary voters. “Anyone running for mayor should be able to offer substantive ideas and solutions to our city's problems without engaging in irrational and antagonistic exchanges with voters,” said Jessica Proud, Mr. Lhota's campaign spokeswoman.

The Brooklyn GOP Independent blog rebuffed the Catsimatidis campaign's claim that the candidates reacted to a rowdy crowd.  "Based upon the commentary by President of the Brooklyn Young Republican Club Glenn Nocera and the Catsimatidis advance-people before the candidate arrived, as well as John Catsimatidis’ own opening remarks, the billionaire candidate for the Republican nomination expected some degree of confrontation from the crowd of Brooklyn Young Republicans and their guests. More than that, the candidate, who referred to himself in front of the group as the “Catman,” indicated that he would be ready for whatever came his way and solicited tough questions," the Brooklyn Independent GOP Fountainhead blog wrote