THE OTHER ‘L’ WORD:Joe Lhota, during his college days at Georgetown (above) and as deputy mayor to Rudy Giuliani, has a libertarian streak.
THE OTHER ‘L’ WORD: Joe Lhota, during his college days at Georgetown (inset) and as deputy mayor (above) to Rudy Giuliani, has a libertarian streak. (
)
He’s not your average Republican candidate for mayor.
Joe Lhota calls himself a “new brand of Republican” — in favor of “fiscal discipline” but progressive on social issues: He’s pro-choice on abortion, is fine with same-sex marriage, and is in favor of legalizing marijuana.
Asked when he last smoked pot, he said, “It’s been 40 years. It’s so long ago I can’t remember. I probably had a full head of hair.”
But Lhota does recall holding libertarian views when he was just 10 years old.
“In 1964, I tried to convince my grandfather, who was active in the New York City firefighters union, to vote for Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson because at the time I thought his approach to limited government was right on,” he recalled.
Lhota is not anti-government — after all, he served as a deputy mayor and also ran the MTA.
But, he says, “it’s not the role of government to tell us what to do and what not to do. There’s nothing more offensive to Americans — or New Yorkers in particular.”
With two weeks to go before New Yorkers pick two mayoral nominees, Lhota is the Republican front-runner but has been pushed out of the spotlight by a more colorful cast of Democrats.
So here’s a Lhota primer:
He was born in The Bronx 58 years ago, grew up on Long Island, and was the first member of his family to go to college — attending Georgetown.
He’s the son of an NYPD lieutenant and grandson of an FDNY firefighter and taxi driver. He lives in a Brooklyn Heights co-op with his wife, Tamra, a GOP fund-raiser.
He reads Tom Clancy, Dan Brown and Ian Fleming novels and loves “The Godfather.”
His career path as an investment banker took a turn when he went to work in Rudy Giuliani’s mayoral campaigns and rose to be his top deputy.
The public first began to notice Lhota after 9/11 when he was at Giuliani’s side — even getting trapped under falling debris with him at 75 Barclay St.
Lhota blames the attacks for the lymphoma he was diagnosed with in 2005 and has beaten.
When Gov. Cuomo appointed Lhota to run the MTA in 2011, a member of the MTA board, Staten Island Democrat Allan Cappelli, had “great skepticism” about him. That quickly changed.
“I loved working with the guy. He was extraordinarily bright. He had a great sense of humor. He listened,” Cappelli said yesterday. “Joe unquestionably has the skill set to be mayor.”
When Lhota shut down the city transit system as a precaution before Hurricane Sandy last year, some New Yorkers thought he was bowing to premature panic. When the system quickly bounced back after the storm, he was proven right.
Lhota bristles at the suggestion that his election would be like Giuliani’s third term — or Mayor Bloomberg’s fourth.
Asked how he differs from Bloomberg, Lhota cites health initiatives in general and Bloomberg’s bid to bar sales of super-sized soda in particular.
“I believe in many of the things that Mike has done, but I believe we should be educating the public before we ban things.
“The role of government is to steer us in the right direction,” he said, “not do all the work for us.”