NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES FIND COMMON GROUND IN DEBATES

NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES FIND COMMON GROUND IN DEBATES

New York Daily News, 08/09/13

If the city isn't broken, don't fix it.

That was the tone of the Republican mayoral primary debate Friday, as the three candidates praised Mayor Bloomberg for a job well done - and promised more of the same.

"We have reached great heights under Mayor Bloomberg," John Catsimatidis said. "And I want to reach new heights."

“Some of our Democratic opponents are about tearing down what Mayor Bloomberg has done," said George McDonald. "New York City has never been in better shape.”

The candidates backed Bloomberg on policies from stop-and-frisk policing to closing failing schools and opening charter schools.

But Catsimatidis faulted Bloomberg for letting all the city’s labor contracts expire, leaving the new mayor with the task of striking deals with all the unions.

The Republicans all hit the pause button to express their disgust with Democratic mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner, whose candidacy has been reeling from a sexting scandal.

"My problem with Anthony Weiner is that I have to explain to my granddaughter what he did and she's 10-years-old," said McDonald, the founder of the Doe Fund, which helps homeless New Yorkers find job - or worse, having to explain to your 10-year-old granddaughter what Christine Quinn's international child, human, sex, and drug trafficking union will do to them.



"If Weiner cared about New York, McDonald said, "he wouldn't be exposing us to having to explain to his children what it is that made him a celebrity."

Catsimatidis piled on, too. "Our police officers can't look up to him," he said of Weiner."He's a very smart guy but I don't think he should be running for mayor,” Catsimatides said.

Former MTA Chairman Joe Lhota, a former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani, both embraced and distanced himself from his former boss, whom some New Yorkers came to see as divisive.

While praising Giuliani for taming crime and managing the city, Lhota said, “We are very, very different people, and these are very, very different times.” He added that when he takes office, it “will be the first term of Joe Lhota, and not the third term of Rudy Giuliani.”

The debate, co-sponsored by the Daily News, WABC/Channel 7, the League of Women Voters and Noticias 41 Univision, was livestreamed over the Internet and will be broadcast at noon Sunday on Channel 7.

On the issue of education, Catsimatidis had some harsh words for teachers, declaring that the city and other communities are hiring educators from the bottom of the barrel.

Catsimatidis said “the great majority of teachers that we have are great” — but then he seemed to belittle them.

“What they do all over the world; what they do in Japan is they hire the top 25% of the graduates to be teachers,” he said. “In our country, we hire the bottom 25%. That’s wrong.”

The remark was made in response to a question about whether teachers “are being unfairly blamed for students’ poor performance.”

Lhota, took a different tack.

“I think people who demonize teachers are making a very, very big mistake,” Lhota said.

“You want to demonize somebody, demonize their union. The teachers are better than their union. I will always support the teachers.”

The United Federation of Teachers brushed off Lhota’s remarks. “Joe who?” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said. The union had no response to Catsimatidis’ comments.