Fred Thompson dragged Mario Cuomo into the White House race yesterday – slamming Republican rival Rudy Giuliani for endorsing the “liberal Democratic” governor in his 1994 re-election contest with George Pataki.
“I don’t think that the mayor has ever claimed to be a conservative,” Thompson said in an interview on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” “He supported a liberal Democratic gubernatorial nominee,” Thompson added, referring to the gubernatorial contest.
Thompson insisted he’s the candidate with the “consistent conservative record” in his eight years as a Tennessee senator.
Raising Giuliani’s support of Cuomo could be a good political play for Thompson because the anti-death-penalty Cuomo is despised among the GOP base and was considered a liberal icon. After Giuliani backed Cuomo, state Sen. Joe Bruno famously trashed him as “Judas Giuliani.”
At a New York State Conservative Party event last night, Thompson piled on the Republican front-runner – though he didn’t mention him by name.
“Some think the way to beat the Democrats in November is to be more like them. I could not disagree more,” he said during his address at the Sheraton New York. “I believe that conservatives beat liberals only when we challenge their outdated positions, not embrace them.”
The Giuliani campaign issued a statement insisting that the former mayor has a successful conservative record.
“It’s easy to throw around meaningless rhetoric but quite another to stand up to a Democratic majority and successfully cut taxes, control spending and reform welfare,” said spokeswoman Maria Comella
For his part, Cuomo told The Post he was “delighted” that his name had surfaced in the Republican primary.
“If the criteria is that a candidate should be eliminated for voting for the wrong person, I guess Thompson should be eliminated because he voted for Bush,” he said.
Thompson’s chief New York adviser, former Republican Sen. and GOP power broker Alfonse D’Amato, may have persuaded the former Tennessee Senator to play the Cuomo card.
D’Amato, a longtime Giuliani nemesis, arranged Thompson’s appearance before the Conservative Party.
Former Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari, one of Giuliani’s earliest backers for City Hall, said after the mayor endorsed Giuliani that he’d created a “Frankenstein.”
Now Molinari is Giuliani’s New York co-chairman.