Disaster looms for the Big Apple if anyone but Joe Lhota is elected mayor, a top supporter of the Republican candidate said in a provocative fund-raising pitch.
“New York City is facing a potential disaster if, accidentally, a rank amateur Democrat or Republican gets elected mayor,” former Ambassador Bruce Gelb said in the e-mail solicitation to Lhota backers.
The next campaign filing deadline is July 11, and Lhota needs to show respectable fund-raising numbers. His chief GOP rival — self-funded supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis — has edged closer to Lhota in recent polls after unleashing a wave of TV and radio ads.
Doe Fund founder George McDonald also is running in the GOP primary.
In his solicitation, Gelb makes it clear that he’s trying to win over hard-core Republican voters.
“I haven’t felt so sure of the importance of supporting Joe Lhota for mayor of New York since I helped George H. W. Bush become president of the United States,” Gelb said.
Gelb, 86, went to school with Bush, served as his Belgian ambassador, and helped raise campaign funds for his son, former President George W. Bush.
“The deadline for the primary is just around the corner. Right now, this minute, this hour, New Yorkers who care about their future, economic health and personal safety, in what knowledgeable people worldwide call the capital of the world, our New York City, can spend a small amount of their money, i.e., $175 to help ensure that Rudy Giuliani’s deputy mayor, Joe Lhota, gets on the primary ballot,” Gelb said.