This is the third in a series of Post profiles of the mayoral candidates.
It didn’t take long for Public Advocate Mark Green to figure out where he stood with the Giuliani administration.
A couple of days after sharing an Inaugural Day stage with Rudy Giuliani in 1994, Green received a call from Deputy Mayor Peter Powers.
It seemed the new mayor was upset at Green’s 10-minute speech. Too mayoral, Powers informed Green.
“I don’t work for you,” responded Green.
That set the tone for the next seven years, thrusting the one-time Nader’s Raider into one confrontation after another – and one headline after another.
His credentials firmly established with the anti-Giuliani crowd, Green now has to convince the mayor’s supporters that he would be equally adept at building on the mayor’s successes, especially when it comes to fighting crime.
“Mark Green’s great challenge is to show that he’s not going to overturn Rudy Giuliani’s policies the day he comes into office,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn), whose Sheepshead Bay district is a Giuliani stronghold.
“He may have some persuading to do.”
Green maintains he’s been tagged anti-cop because he stood up to Giuliani on police misconduct.
“Simple-minded people thought if you attack abusive cops, you’re anti-cop,” Green said.
Still, the issue has him citing consumer-affairs inspectors he once supervised in the Dinkins administration as proof of his law-enforcement ties.
City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, a mayoral rival who has branded Green “ultra-liberal,” charges he’s trying to “recreate” his record.
But Green has a secret weapon in the form of Bill Bratton, Giuliani’s first police commissioner.
“He’s not somebody who’s going to be soft on crime,” Bratton said of Green. “He’s not someone who’s a cop-basher.”
Anointed as true blue by Bratton, Green is widely viewed as the guy to beat in the four-way Democratic slugfest for mayor that’ll be decided Sept. 11.
The Kings Highway Democratic Club in Weiner’s district – which endorsed Giuliani – is now “leaning” toward Green.
“He understands the policies the mayor set out are positive ones,” said club president Mike Geller.
As he recalls it, Green didn’t gravitate toward politics in his early days as a student at Cornell.
“I really wasn’t very political. I was very studious, very boring,” he said. “The Vietnam War changed all that.”
As an intern for Sen. Jacob Javits, Green achieved a measure of fame by organizing an anti-war letter signed by 178 other congressional interns. President Johnson was so furious, he canceled the internship program for three years.
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1970, Green landed as a consumer advocate with Ralph Nader, launching a career that produced 16 books and a resume made for the political arena.
Green, 56, has run for Congress once and for the Senate twice, unsuccessfully.
Green’s wit often makes him appear to be a smart aleck.
When Vallone graciously introduced him at a recent news conference, the first words from Green’s mouth were, “Thanks for the endorsement.”
Green is identified so often in terms of Giuliani that his ambitious campaign promises haven’t drawn much attention.
They include: construction of 50,000 new apartments, a maximum classroom size of 20 students in the early grades, creation of 400,000 new private-sector jobs and a decrease in murders to below even Giuliani-era levels.
Green says he’s prepared to be a strong leader and “not a cautious follower.” Just like Giuliani.
MARK JOSEPH GREEN
BORN:March 15, 1945, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn; moved to Long Island at age 3.
HOME:Apartment on East 90th Street – two blocks from Gracie Mansion.
EDUCATION:Cornell, 1967; Harvard Law School, 1970.
FAMILY:Married to Deni Frand since 1977. Two children, Jenya, 22, and Jonah, 17.
HOBBIES:Goes to the movies every week “except for the last four weeks.”
FAVORITE BOOK: “The Power Broker” by Robert Caro – about Robert Moses.
STRANGE FACT:From 1980 to 1982 he lived a floor below Rudy Giuliani in an East 86th Street high-rise. “We knew each other in a public way. ‘Hi, hi.’ No relationship.”
GREEN’S HITS AND MISSES
Some ups (xxx) and downs (xxx) in Mark Green’s 21-year political career:
(down) Lost bid for Manhattan congressional seat in 1980.
(even) Upset heavy-spending John Dyson in 1986 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, but lost in general election to Alfonse D’Amato.
(UP) Is appointed Consumer Affairs commissioner by Mayor Dinkins in 1990. Left in mid-1993 to run for — and win– city’s first Public Advocate’s post.
(DOWN) Lost second primary run for U.S. Senate in 1998 to Chuck Schumer.
(UP) In 1999 referendum Mayor Giuliani failed to change the line of succession to bypass the Public Advocate. Green boasted that he “out-thought, out-organized and out-fought” the administration to triumph.
(DOWN) Giuliani pulled out of Senate race against Hillary Clinton in May 2000. Had Rudy run and won, Green would now be mayor.
(UP) When mentor Ralph Nader ran for president in 2000, ignoring warning from Dems that he was drawing votes from Al Gore, Green stuck with Gore –and some people noticed.