New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the Democratic front-runner to succeed him as mayor is waging a "class warfare and racist" campaign, according to an interview published on New York Magazine's website.
Bill de Blasio, the city's public advocate who has built his campaign around the issue of rising economic inequality, has been surging in public polls, overtaking the longtime front-runner, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Bloomberg ally.
"Tearing people apart with this 'two cities' thing doesn't make any sense to me," Bloomberg is quoted as saying. When the interviewer offers that de Blasio " has in some ways been running a class-warfare campaign, Bloomberg cuts in, "class warfare and racist."
He pointed out that de Blasio had used his biracial son in a campaign ad, but then conceded that for the candidate, whose wife is African-American, to reach out to black voters might be little different from Bloomberg, who is Jewish, reaching out to Jewish voters.
Pressed specifically about his use of the term "racist," Bloomberg said, "Well, no, no," before adding, "He's making an appeal using his family to gain support." With Tuesday's primary contests looming, Bloomberg also offered a tacit endorsement of Quinn on the Democratic side and, on the Republican side, Joe Lhota, the former head of the city's mass transit agency, saying the New York Times endorsement of those candidates got it right.
"I thought the Times was right in their editorials on Lhota and Quinn. I'm very pleased about that," Bloomberg said. As Speaker, Quinn "did a very good job for seven and a half years of keeping legislation that never should have made it to the floor, that would have been damaging to the city, from ever getting there," Bloomberg said.
