Mayor Giuliani – riding a tidal wave of national fame – just cut a TV ad in the Houston mayoral runoff, where a Latino Republican is trying to oust Mayor Lee Brown, New York’s one-time police commissioner.
Brown was top cop under Mayor David Dinkins and drew criticism for his failure to control the Crown Heights riots.
Republican Orlando Sanchez hopes to make Houston the largest U.S. city to elect a Latino mayor in Saturday’s runoff, where the latest poll shows a statistical tie, with Sanchez less than one point ahead.
“Orlando Sanchez is running on the need for change and leadership, and there are no two finer examples of leadership than Mayor Giuliani and President Bush,” said Sanchez strategist Chris Begala.
It’s the latest sign of how hot the Giuliani brand now is in politics – his TV ad arguably made Mike Bloomberg the winner in New York, and he also did TV ads in this year’s two governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia.
“Being the mayor of a large city is always hard work, and, in these times, it’s more challenging than ever,” Giuliani says on the ad. “I know something about leadership, and Houston has a true leader in Orlando Sanchez.”
President Bush is doing recorded phone calls for Sanchez, and his parents have made a TV ad for him.
The big Bush push for Sanchez is part of a broad Republican strategy to court Latinos, the fastest growing group in America and a key to Dubya’s 2000 election.
It would be a big GOP bragging point if the nation’s fourth-largest city picked a Republican as its first Latino mayor after Latino Democrats lost in Los Angeles and in the bitter New York mayoral race.