Republican mayoral candidate Joe Lhota picked up the Conservative Party nod yesterday, despite splitting with the group on social issues — including same-sex marriage and legalizing marijuana.
“This is not a race about social issues,” said Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long, who endorsed Lhota’s bid in the unusually heated GOP primary.
Lhota favors gay marriage and legalizing pot — both issues Long opposes. But the chairman said the race is about the quality of life in the five boroughs.
Long called Lhota’s main GOP rival, supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, a “good friend” but chastised him for “re-creating the Liberal Party in the city of New York.”
The Liberal Party, which lost its ballot status a decade ago, has endorsed Catsimatidis.
The Conservative Party’s mayoral candidate in 2009, Stephen Christopher, got a paltry 18,013 votes.
The winner of the GOP primary has an uphill battle in beating the Democratic nominee in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans by six to one. But Mike Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani bucked the odds in the last five elections.
Lhota said he is confident he will win the primary, even though Catsimatidis is self-funding his race.
“I will win the Republican nomination,” said the former head of the MTA and deputy mayor under Giuliani. Sally Goldenberg, Antonio Antenucci
Meanwhile, he trashed Democratic hopeful Bill Thompson for criticizing the new deal on teacher evaluations Sunday night. After sounding positive about the deal Saturday, Thompson a day later called it “unworkable in its complexity and bureaucracy.”
Sources say Thompson is a strong contender for the highly coveted backing of the United Federation of Teachers, which fought with Mayor Bloomberg over the evaluation deal.
“Bill Thompson’s position on the plan leaves more questions than answers. Is it because he’s incapable of handling complexity or that he’s more interested in pandering to a special interest in an election year?” Lhota snapped. “Either way, New York City schoolchildren lose with Thompson.”
Democratic challenger Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker, lauded the plan but said she was still reviewing it.
“We’re still reviewing all the specifics of it; the framework of it is absolutely something I support,” Quinn said at a press conference in which she received the endorsement of Harlem Councilwoman Inez Dickens.
Dickens, a close ally of Rep. Charles Rangel, backed Quinn just hours after Rangel and former Mayor David Dinkins announced their support for Thompson, the only African-American in the race.
Quinn and Thompson also continued to trade barbs for the fifth straight day over placing a garbage dump on the Upper East Side. Quinn favors the plan; Thompson does not.
The 91st Street station is a key part of Quinn’s Solid Waste Management Plan, which she passed in 2006 to move trash out of the city by barge.
Thompson has sided with neighborhood residents who oppose the site but has yet to offer an alternative one.
Thompson also campaigned on Staten Island yesterday and said a bill to increase Staten Island Ferry service “makes sense.”