Republican mayoral hopeful couldn't of chosen a better advocate, making the case for his candidacy, than former mayor Rudy Giuliani in his home turf - Staten Island. In a 30 minute speech to supporters, who gathered at a minimum of $175 per person at the Excelsior Grand in Staten Island, Mayor Giuliani pitched the case for Joe Lhota, whom he said is the most qualified person to serve as New York City's next mayor.
"Joe understands the budget of the city in detail, from his work in my administration and from his work as a financial analyst, working on municipal finance for many years before he came to city government," said Mayor Giuliani. "Joe brings with him a great deal of knowledge of the financial market and business. That's what we need. Not these career politicians who have never really held a job. Like our president who really never held a job."
"The Democratic candidates are going to be owned by the unions," Mayor Giuliani said, as he turned to deny the Democratic candidates from obtaining the job at City Hall. "When I ran for mayor the slogan was: 'With all the crime, all the deficits and all the unemployment, vote for me, you can't do any worse.' You know something? That slogan applies today. You can't do any worse. And in fact you will do worse, a lot worse, if you don't elect Joe Lhota."
At another point of the speech, Mayor Giuliani referred to the Democratic candidates as being sold out to the unions or lack the conviction of dealing with the economic crisis. "We need an strong man with strong convictions as mayor of New York city. Not someone who's going to change his mind just because one union yells very loud. Just because his opponents are saying: 'oh, you didn't the support the bill to give people all the money they want. Now you're supporting the bill to give people all the money they want because you're running for office.' That alone should disqualify you for office," said the mayor.
Mayor Giuliani also addressed Mr. Lhota's ties to Staten Island, a stronghold for Republicans, especially in the primaries. "There are other Republican candidates. They have pluses. They have minuses. But as far of understanding Staten Island, none of them.. none of them.. comes close to Joe Lhota. He knows more about Staten Island than all of those Republicans combined X2."
"But he can't do it alone," said Mr Giuliani."Here is your job. You got to raise money for him... The rules are so difficult that we need a lot of people making small contribution in order to get the money that's necessary to make Joe a viable candidate. Money is very very important. Because the message that I just gave to you here, is the message that people all over New York City have to hear. And if they do, he will be elected as mayor of New York City."
Mr Giuliani also addressed the Boston Terror attack, the 9/11 attacks, public safety and the war on terror as a reason to put Mr. Lhota at the helm, in order to keep New York City a safe place to live in and avoid future terror attacks.
"New York City still is as we know, and as we have been reminded in the last couple of weeks, New York City still is the number one target of terrorism in this country," Mr Giuliani said before turning the focus at Islamic terrorism in general. "There were some people in Washington, who when we captured Bin Laden thought that the war on terror was over. They even announced it. I believe that some of these attacks that have recently taken place, have taken place because there is in Washington a process of denial. A Process of not really understanding what is against us. It is almost silly to say that there is no war on terror, because the Terrorists are at war with us."
"So we need a mayor who's going to be very strong about this. We need a mayor who is not going to be confused by so many of these liberal ideas that say: 'Oh, I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't classify this person as an Islamic extremist terrorist. Maybe it will offend somebody if we do it'. We need a mayor who understands that from having been at my side virtually every moment for 40 days, from the moment the bombs hit until the moment we left office."
Mr. Giuliani also slammed critics who want to do away the police department’s controversial with stop-and-frisk policy, and pointed to Chicago as an example of what might happen if policing policies change.
“What we do that Chicago doesn’t do… [is] we aggressively enforce our laws to take guns out of the hands of criminals,” he said. “They, instead, are very, very careful. They’re very frightened. They’re very worried, very worried about rights: this right, that right, some other right. The only right they’re not thinking about is the right to be safe in your city,” he said,
In conclusion, Mayor Giuliani wrapped up his speech in summary. "He [Lhota] is the only one who has the background, the experience, the wisdom, the common sense, and most importantly the courage to make the tough decisions this city is going to need, if its going to continue the direction it has been going over the last 20 years."
"We cannot give this city back to a bunch of Democratic machine politicians, who will not run it for the benefit of the Democrats. They will run it for the benefit of the few Democrats who happen to be part of the special interests," he added.
