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Jewish Week

Lhota Ad Invokes Crown Heights Riots

On the day after the first debate pitting him against Democratic frontrunner Bill de Blasio, Republican mayoral contender Joseph Lhota unleashed an ad warning that New York will fall into criminal chaos if de Blasio prevails.

The commericlal features video of the recent FDR Drive motorcyclist attack on a driver and other images of mayhem, including one from the 1991 Crown Heights riots.

Lhota’s former boss, Rudy Giuliani, made the riots a centerpiece of his successful campaign to unseat Mayor David Dinkins two years later. De Blasio was an aide in the Dinkins administration.

“Bill de Blasio’s recklessly dangerous agenda on crime will take us back to this,” warns the narrator on the spot, titled ‘Can’t Go Back.’ (See full video below.)

The ad cites an out-of-context quote from de Blasio that police should visit motorcyle clubs in response to the FDR event, but the subtext is the Democrat’s vehement criticism of the NYPD’s implementation of stop-and-frisk procedures, which served him extremely well in the Democratic primary.

In response to the ad, de Blasio’s campiagn said in a statement to The Jewish Week  “Once again Joe Lhota is taking a page out of the Tea Party Republican play book, using a divisive, misleading attack that has already been proven false.  Lhota is right that we can’t go back: we shouldn’t return to the days when Republicans like Giuliani used fear tactics to divide New Yorkers against each other.”

De Blasio consistently stuck to the “Republican playbook” line of attack in Tuesday night’s debate on WABC-TV, striving to counter Lhota’s message that he is a centrist Republican. De Blasio invoked comments Lhota made to a Staten Island Tea Party group that “my philosophical values are very close to yours in many, many ways.”

A previous Lhota ad strived to blur party lines by noting the similarity of the two candidates’ positions on social issues, insisting the only difference between them is on increasing taxes for the wealthy, a de Blasio proposal.

“Do not lump me wth people I am constantly in disagreement with,” Lhota said at one point in the debate. At one point he also sharply criticized Republicans in Congress for their role in the government shutdown, and at another he rapped Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican-turned-independent, for suggesting that the city should try to attract more bilionaires, saying it was “insensitive.”

De Blasio took a shot at Lhota’s resume by saying “Mr. Lhota was a top aide to Rudolph Giuliani, the most divisive administration we’ve seen in decades, and Mr. Lhota had a ringside seat, helping to make that happen.”

But de Blasio at one point struggled with a question about his management experience, compared with Lhota’s having been a deputy mayor and chairman of the MTA. When asked if the city might be less safe under his opponent,  Lhota said “It might be less safe with him because he’s untested,”

All recent polls show Lhota badly trailing, by as much as 40 points, in the race to be decided Nov. 5th.

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10 Comments

  • Too late

    Let’s not dream here folks, De Blasio is too far ahead in the polls to lose the election.

    Batten down the hatches.

  • Dikinds time all over again..

    Deretard is bringing back all the peeps from Dikinds. Good luck to us.

  • Ma Rabbi

    I like this guy Lhota. If I lived in NY I would vote for him
    Bill De Blasio is a radical leftist part of the Obama crowd. That’s reason enough not to trust him.

  • Its true

    we will go back to 1991

    today he promised the muslims he will stop watching them and they can do what they want

    for some reason all the jews are voting for this guy

    oh and a black DA will be elected as well!!

  • Yossel

    It is the duty of every honest and concerned New Yorker to ensure the bad old days of Dinkins, Koch, Beame and Lindsey don ‘t return. Vote for Lhota!

    Keep Times Square a place for families, not adult entertainment.

    Keep Crown Heights save from progroms.

    Keep the subways clean, graffiti-free, and off-limits to muggers.

  • by

    scare tactics are outdated. if someone wants to prove themselves, do it in an intelligent way.

  • "Scare tactics"

    The scariest thing is listening to what deBlasio himself has to say. If he’s elected mayor there’s no question that the city will go downhill and people will DIE R”L because of his uber-liberal, communist mentality,the policies he’ll establish (or do away with) and the type of people he’ll install in positions of power. Who remembers Dinkin’s affirmative action police commissioner “Out of Town” Brown? We can expect such appointments from deBlasio.