Giuliani Boasts of Bloomberg, Backs Red Sox
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
BOSTON — Mayor Giuliani is dragging Mayor Bloomberg into the presidential race, arguing that keeping New York’s mayoralty in Republican hands was an achievement that contrasts with that of Mitt Romney, who turned the Massachusetts governor’s office over to Deval Patrick, a Democrat who endorsed Barack Obama last night.
It was an unusual twist in Mr. Giuliani’s unconventional run for the presidency — invoking, to Republican primary voters, the legacy of Mr. Bloomberg, a tax-raising, anti-gun, anti-tobacco, pro-abortion-rights, pro-gay-marriage politician who has since left the Republican Party to become an independent who is considering his own third-party presidential bid. To top it off, Mr. Giuliani, a famous New York Yankees fan who has questioned Senator Clinton’s bona fides as a Yankees fan, said he was rooting for the Red Sox to win the World Series.
Mr. Giuliani, flanked by two architects of Republican growth in Massachusetts, a former governor, Paul Cellucci, and a former state treasurer, Joseph Malone, trumpeted his success as a Republican in a Democratic city. Mr. Malone, a former chairman of the state party who once challenged Edward Kennedy in a Senate race, is credited for helping to build a grassroots Republican Party in Massachusetts along Reaganite grounds. Mr. Cellucci defeated Mr. Malone in a 1998 nomination battle, but the men came together after a Boston fund-raiser to support Mr. Giuliani. While none had much to say specifically about Mr. Romney, who is emerging as Mr. Giuliani’s toughest rival for the Republican presidential nomination, their joint presence demonstrated Mr. Romney’s distance from the local Republican establishment.
“I would make the point that I was succeeded by a Republican mayor and that I had two terms as mayor of New York City,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I got re-elected as a Republican in a Democratic city… It’s real hard to get re-elected to a Democratic city or state. I think it’s even more a statement on the kind of job you did to get re-elected.”
Speaking after the press conference, Mr. Cellucci acknowledged that it was tough to be a Republican in Massachusetts. “It’s just tough here in this state, it’s a Democratic state,” Mr. Cellucci said. Still, he faulted Mr. Romney for failing to follow the Cellucci-era success of winning a referendum on a statewide income tax rollback. “I put that referendum on the ballot because I thought it would help Republican candidates,” Mr. Cellucci said. “We got it down from 5.5 to 5.3 [percent] and Mitt was unable to get it down to five I might add.”
Mr. Romney did refuse to cave to constant Democratic pressure to increase the income tax in the state.
A spokesman for Mr. Romney, Eric Fehrnstrom, fired back a response for the former Massachusetts governor aimed at Mr. Giuliani’s position on abortion and his stewardship of New York City’s budget. “The great thing about America is that people are free to endorse whoever they want. We all like and respect Joe Malone and Paul Cellucci, but they are both pro-choice and no one should be surprised that they have endorsed Rudy Giuliani, who is also pro-choice,” Mr. Fehrnstrom, Mr. Malone’s former director of communications, said. “Rudy Giuliani left his successor a budget deficit. That’s probably one of the reasons Mayor Bloomberg un-enrolled as a Republican. By contrast, Mitt Romney left his successor a $2.2 billion rainy day fund, and a budget that ended the year with a surplus.”
The Giuliani campaign points to a New York State Financial Control Board staff report as backing up the assertion that Mr. Giuliani left office with a balanced budget.
Richard Tisei, a Massachusetts state senator who is one of the handful of Republicans in the legislature and a sponsor of the fund-raising event, faulted Mr. Romney for his failure to strengthen the Republican Party in Massachusetts. “I think a lot of people in the state definitely feel abandoned,” Mr. Tisei told the Sun. “Governor Romney spent three out of the four years out of his governorship out of state running for president and consistently out of state.” He contrasted the records of Messrs. Giuliani and Romney in their home jurisdictions. Mr. Giuliani, he said, “did everything he did in New York and then was replaced by a Republican as opposed to Governor Romney here, his handpicked lieutenant governor got killed in the election.”
In baseball-crazed Boston, Mr. Giuliani, a die-hard Yankees fan who often wears a Navy Yankees jacket to games, said he was backing the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series. “I’m rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series. I’m not saying that just because I’m in Massachusetts,” Mr. Giuliani said in comments likely to reverberate over the airwaves in New Hampshire, a center of fanatical Red Sox support. “I’m an American League fan. I go with the American League team maybe with the exception of the Mets because of my loyalty to New York.” Mr. Giuliani’s comments were in contrast to a slogan often seen on t-shirts throughout New England, “my favorite team is the Red Sox … and whoever is playing the Yankees.”
In that spirit, Mr. Fehrnstrom said, “if Colorado wants Mayor Giuliani to root for the Rockies, they’re going to have to move their primary up.”
Later in the day, Mr. Giuliani appeared at a town meeting in Concord, N.H., and filed his candidacy papers with New Hampshire’s Secretary of State, William Gardner.