Now this is rich.
A labor-backed political action committee supporting Democratic mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio launched a $1 million ad blitz Friday portraying rival Joe Lhota as a Tea Party-loving Republican.
The broadside came a day after de Blasio slammed a court decision in favor of a pro-Lhota PAC that removes the limits on donations to aid the candidate.
“A mayor for the middle class? Not Joe Lhota,” the 30-second TV spot proclaims.
“The Tea Party Republicans shut down our government. But Joe Lhota told the Tea Party he shares their views,” says the narrator, while showing a video clip of Lhota speaking at a Staten Island Tea Party event earlier this year.
The ad was released by New York Progress, which is financed by the hotel-workers union, the teachers union and other labor groups.
“A million dollar buy? Wow!” marveled Lhota.
“That would be the largest single buy of anyone throughout the entire campaign process including the primaries.
“It’s interesting, the hypocrisy yesterday listening to de Blasio’s spokespeople in a Web ad talk about — that people, friends of mine are going to buy the election, when in fact he’s the one with the most amount of independent expenditure money.”
The pro-de Blasio ad buy dwarfs spending by two pro-Lhota PACs, New Yorkers for Proven Leadership and the New York Progress and Protection Committee.
The latter filed the federal lawsuit challenging New York state law that limits individual donations to PACs to $150,000.
Proven Leadership has spent about $300,000 touting Lhota. The Protection PAC has not filed a spending report yet.
Lhota’s independent backers are having difficulty raising funds as the GOP candidate trails by more than 40 points in the latest polls.
Lhota noted that it was de Blasio who fought the city Campaign Finance Board when it tried to impose tighter restrictions on union spending in political campaigns.
Asked about Lhota’s hyprocrisy charge, de Blasio campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said the disagreement with the pro-Lhota PAC was about its lawsuit to allow unlimited contributions, not its political loyalty.
“Only the right-wing billionaires and Tea Party groups supporting Joe Lhota are upending campaign-finance laws to drown out the voices of New Yorkers. They’re breaking the rules and it’s bad for New York,” Smith said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Lhota, in an event with charter-school parents from the Harlem Village Academy, accused de Blasio of being “in the pocket of the UFT,” the United Federation of Teachers.
De Blasio, Lhota said, “will not go against the teachers union. In fact, I’m so afraid of what’s going to happen if, God forbid, he’s elected and has to sit across the table and watch the UFT pick his pockets.”