Rudy Giuliani and Bernie Kerik

22 October 2009 |permalink | email article

What’s not surprising about the new Quinnipiac survey of the New York Governor’s race is that Andrew Cuomo continues to crush incumbent David Patterson in the Democratic primary. He beats Patterson 61 to 19 in the current survey. Nor is it a surprise that on the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani easily beats Rick Lazio, 74-9. In a hypothetical general election match up the Democratic attorney general defeats the former New York City mayor and phantom former Republican presidential candidate 50 to 40.

But the real national story, if Giuliani opts for governor, involves his long and very close relationship with former New York City police commissioner Bernard B. Kerik which is certain to become a major campaign issue. He was pivotal in convincing President Bush to make Kerik his top choice to lead the Department of Homeland Security before the tainted nomination was withdrawn.

Kerik faces three criminal trials in federal court. Jury selection in the first trial – in which he faces corruption, conspiracy and tax fraud charges – is scheduled to begin on Monday.

On Tuesday Kerik, who ran the city’s jail system for the mayor and was police commissioner during the 9/11 attacks, later worked for Giuliani’s private consulting firm. His $500,000 bail revoked he was sent to jail Tuesday. A federal judge said Kerik had leaked sealed information from his future criminal trial in order to create public sympathy, and described him as “a toxic
combination of self-minded focus and arrogance.”

(Retiring Los Angeles police chief Bill Bratton, the police commissioner under Giuliani before Kerik, reduced crime in New York City. He made the cover of Time in 1996 but the big-ego mayor eventually forced him out.)

Quotable

“I’m seeing the same seeds now that I saw then.” Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who worked as a low-level aide in the Nixon White House, explaining to ABCNews.com that Obama is no Nixon yet but making a friendly suggestion that his administration not create an enemies list like boycotting the Fox News network.


359