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The “H” is silent. Joe Lhota is not.
The MTA chairman’s biggest challenge in running for mayor won’t be controlling what people say about him, but what he says about them.
In the last year alone, Lhota said Mayor Bloomberg acted “like an idiot’’ during the storm; accused Manhattan state Sen. Bill Perkins of doing “nothing but talk’’; and challenged MTA board member Charles Moerdler to “be a man” during a debate about public-hearing schedules.
He once flipped off a New York Times reporter who pushed him for comment, and doesn’t hesitate to call people out on Twitter.
Often outspoken, sometimes bombastic, Republican Lhota — who is resigning his post to explore a run for City Hall — knows his habit of saying exactly what he thinks gets mixed reviews.
“My best quality is that I talk to everyone,” Lhota, 57, has said. “My worst quality is that I talk to everyone.”
He often attributes that to his Bronx-born sensibilities. But those who know him say it’s just Joe being authentic and the reason, ironically, he has so many lasting relationships.
“You never have to ask Joe what he’s thinking,” said longtime buddy Charles Crimi, who has known him since 1974, when they both attended Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
They met in a dorm.
After a night out drinking, Lhota mistakenly entered Crimi’s room, thinking it was his girlfriend’s.
When Crimi opened his door, Lhota greeted him by vomiting all over his shoes. Despite the spectacular introduction, the two have been friends for nearly 40 years.
Moerdler says he just couldn’t stay mad at Lhota for long.
“I think he’s a competent guy and with the exception of that blow-up, our interaction, both before and after, has been fine,” Moerdler said.
Unlike his handlers, Lhota doesn’t worry much about bad press, often saying simply, “I am who I am,” with a shrug to those who try to corral him.
“He takes his work seriously,” said Crimi, an upstate judge. “But not himself.”
When the chips are down, he’s more likely to call to console someone than to call them out.
Lhota was one of the few people to pick up the phone and call disgraced Democrat Anthony Weiner following the former congressman’s sexting scandal.
“He was a friend before. He still is,” Weiner said. “I like Joe.”
Born in the Bronx, Lhota was raised on Long Island. He and his wife, Tamra, a GOP fundraiser, live in Brooklyn Heights. They also own a vacation home in Nantucket, and an apartment in Washington, DC, where his daughter Kathryn lives while she attends Georgetown.
The couple has donated almost $80,000 to various candidates, most of them Republicans, since the 1980s.
Lhota declined to be interviewed before he leaves the MTA at the end of the month.
Friends describe him as a guy with a penchant for stinky cheese and white wine, a lover of spy novels and all things “Godfather”-related, and a human sponge for useless trivia.
His father is a retired NYPD lieutenant and his grandfather was FDNY.
He has been a fixture in city government for years, but he’s not exactly a household name.
Known recently and gratefully to New Yorkers as the guy who got the trains running 72 hours after Hurricane Sandy shuttered the city, Lhota has spent the majority of his public career working for Rudy Giuliani as a deputy mayor and budget director. Before that, he was an investment banker.
When Giuliani underwent treatment for prostate cancer in 2000, Lhota stepped in as acting mayor.
Lhota later survived his own battle with lymphoma.
On 9/11, Lhota and Giuliani were briefly trapped together by falling debris at 75 Barclay St.
“When you’re stuck in a building together, you get an idea of how someone operates under pressure,” Giuliani told The Post.
“That was a true test of leadership ability, and Joe managed it magnificently.”
Giuliani was among those who encouraged Lhota to run for mayor, saying no one was more qualified in the current lineup of potential candidates.
“I told him that for the good of the city, he should run,” Giuliani said. But noting registered Republicans are outnumbered 6 to 1 by Democrats, Giuliani added, “He has to be prepared for the very long odds against him.”