Bloomy’s Way Or the Highway
With less than a month to go before the September 13 primaries for mayor of New York, liberal Republican incumbent Michael Bloomberg is breathing easily after the city Board of Elections kicked his lone opponent off the GOP ballot. Although staunchly conservative former City Councilman Tom Ognibene submitted more than 8,000 signatures on petitions to qualify for the ballot, the board ruled that he failed to turn in the 7,500 verifiable signatures from registered Republicans required by law to compete for the mayoral nomination.
This means that, for now, Bloomberg gets a free ride for renomination, although Ognibene will be on the November ballot as the Conservative Party nominee.
Undaunted, Queens lawyer Ognibene told me he will challenge his removal from the Republican ballot in U.S. District Court. Recalling how courts ruled in 2000 that Sen. John McCain needed only 1% of registered Republicans to get on the presidential primary ballot, Ognibene said that, if applied to the city race, the McCain ruling would mean he needed only about 5,500 verified signatures to qualify for the ballot. Ognibene further noted that, even with some of his signatures disqualified, he had more than enough valid signatures among the 7,500 he submitted to meet the 1% threshold.
But the question still looms: Why would supporters of Bloomberg, a sitting mayor and telecommunications tycoon who has so far spent $23 million of his own money on re-election, make such a major push to avoid a race with Ognibene, who is running an all-volunteer campaign and has so far raised less than $75,000? (“I have the best campaign treasurer—my wife Margaret.”) A spokesman for Bloomberg denied that the mayor himself or his re-election campaign were involved in questioning the legitimacy of the Ognipene petitions.
According to the New York Times, however, the quarterback of the challenge to Ognibene’s petitions is one Bart Haggerty, a Queens Republican who happens to be the brother of John Haggerty, Jr., a Bloomberg campaign aide.
“[Bloomberg’s] got John Hagerty on his payroll,” fumed Ognibene. “If the mayor thinks he’s going to be able to do this and distance himself from it, it’s a disgrace.”
Asked why he thinks Bloomberg’s backers would go to such a length to get him off the ballot, the challenger replied: “Because, contrary to what’s reported here, the Republican primary would be very close. And that’s because, when I speak to Republican clubs, I also point out that we have a mayor on our standard who would like to eliminate the moderate-to-conservative wing of the party.”
A Proud RINO
As Human Events readers are well aware, the last Republican mayor of New York was never fully trusted by conservatives until Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, for all the praise he has been given since his heroic performance when his city came under attack nearly four years ago, Rudy Giuliani is still regarded as a moderate-to-liberal by most conservative Republicans.
Ognibene is certainly one of them, having championed such issues on the council as a strong pro-life stance and making English the official language of New York—causes Giuliani never touched.
“But Rudy would never do the things that Mike Bloomberg is doing now,” said Ognibene, who served as Republican leader of the council during the later years of Giuliani’s tenure. “Rudy never increased taxes. Bloomberg raised our property taxes significantly. Rudy was liberal on abortion, all right, but opposed partial-birth abortion. Bloomberg supports it. Rudy believed in laws that protected people of a different sexual orientation, but did not believe in gay marriage. Bloomberg does. He’s attacked the President’s efforts to reform Social Security and said he was against [Supreme Court nominee] John Roberts unless he absolutely agrees that Roe v. Wade should remain the law of the land.
“Conservative Republicans call liberal Republicans ‘RINOs’—Republicans In Name Only. Bloomberg, who switched his registration from Democrat to Republican when he ran for mayor [in 2001], calls himself a RINO,” Ognibene said. “He’s proud of it!”
Ognibene, of course, has nothing like the resources of Bloomberg, and will be hard pressed to raise the $250,000 that will trigger public funding under New York campaign finance laws ($6.00 in city funding for every dollar he raises). But he did win the endorsement of the Queens County Republican Committee and its well-known chairman, state Sen. Serph Maltese (for whom Ognibene once served as legal counsel in the state legislature).
Ognibene’s challenge to Bloomberg may well be a doomed enterprise. But several newspapers have begun to point out that the mayor’s moves against his long-shot opponent sharply contradict his own long-stated opposition to challenging signatures on nominating petitions. Bloomberg, who has supported non-partisan municipal elections as a means of ending ballot access challenges, was quoted in the New York Sun last year as saying: “It’s time to end this ‘gotcha’ kind of technique where lawyers comb petitions to find some technical violation.”
Bush for Campbell
South Carolina Republican lieutenant governor hopeful Mike Campbell made headlines throughout the state two weeks ago when his candidacy received the endorsement of George Bush—that is, the President’s father, George H.W. Bush. In a move that stunned Palmetto State pundits and pols, the 81-year-old former President sent a letter to Campbell, son of former Gov. (1986-94) Carroll Campbell, strongly endorsing his bid for South Carolina’s second-highest office in the Republican primary next year. “[Y]ou will serve the state with distinction and integrity,” wrote the elder Bush, adding that “Barbara and I are proud of your candidacy.”
The Bush blessing of the 37-year-old businessman and first-time candidate is an outgrowth of past presidential politics. Former Gov. Campbell played a pivotal role in the elder Bush’s 1988 victory in the South Carolina presidential primary, which wrapped up the presidential nod for the then-Vice President. Both Campbells campaigned vigorously to put George W. Bush over John McCain in an equally decisive primary in 2000. Young Campbell’s opponent this year, incumbent Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, supported McCain (as did Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. Lindsey Graham, both Republican U.S. House members at the time).
Although Bush follows political news and remains an active campaigner for fellow Republicans, his endorsement of a challenger against an incumbent Republican is a political shock. Professor Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told the Greenville News that the endorsement is “remarkable, though, because a Republican incumbent is involved. I can’t remember a case when a former President came out against an incumbent in a party primary.”
I can: In 1970, Lyndon B. Johnson, a year out of the presidency and living outside Austin, Tex., joined former Gov. John Connally to campaign hard for conservative former Rep. Lloyd Bentsen for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination. Bentsen was opposing incumbent Sen. Ralph W. Yarborough, an outspoken liberal toward whom LBJ and Connally had long been antagonistic. Bentsen won and, that fall, was elected to the Senate over Republican George H.W. Bush.
Bauer, according to Greenville News political reporter Dan Hoover, “said he has no comment” about Bush’s endorsement of his opponent.
The news about Mike Campbell’s bid for office comes at a time when his father is battling Alzheimer’s disease. Four years after he revealed he suffered from the disease, the 65-year-old Campbell was admitted last week to a residential treatment center for full-time care. The family will not identify the facility out of concern for the former governor’s privacy.
