Giuliani wasn’t stumping for Bloomberg – Bloomberg was stumping for Giuliani

In recent polls, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is beating his election challenger Bill Thompson by 16 points.

With so much on the line, Bloomberg has to do all he can to make sure that his limit-busting third term doesn’t slip away from him. So of course he needs to head to Borough Park and engage in some good old-fashioned race-baiting in front of a friendly audience, because G-d forbid New York’s new Mayor-for-as-long-as-he-wants-to-be shouldn’t crush his opponent:

Former mayor Rudy Giuliani warned Sunday that crime rates could soar to 1990s levels and the city could again be a victim of terrorism if Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t win reelection.

Giuliani’s dire predictions came during a tag-team campaign swing – the first time Bloomberg has tapped the one-time GOP star for help on the stump this election season.

“This city could very easily be taken back in a very different direction,” Giuliani told a crowd of ultra-Orthodox Jews at a breakfast sponsored by Brooklyn’s Borough Park Jewish Community Council. “It could very easily be taken back to the way it was with the wrong political leadership. Politics is important. It’s important toour safety. It’s important to our security.”

Bloomberg said that New York could become another Detroit.

“We all know that cities have gone through great boom times and then turned around and collapsed. Take a look at Detroit,” he said. “It went from a great city with lots of good-paying jobs to a city that’s basically holding on for dear life. All of our gains are always in danger of being turned around.”

via New York City is doomed if you vote for Thompson, not Bloomberg, ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani warns.

What’s really going on here? Is Bloomberg trying to ensure that he wins the election by 21 points instead of 16?

No, not at all. The ego has landed, and it’s hoping that our mayor’s halo will light it up. Bloomberg is helping Rudy Giuliani launch his gubernatorial campaign.

Giuliani has been mum about whether or not he’ll run for governor. And I think he’ll stay quiet for a bit longer. He knows that he’s likely to get crushed if he runs against Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. But if he sees that the wind is blowing toward a prolonged primary fight between Cuomo and our current ineffectual Governor, David Paterson, he might think that he can pull a rabbit out of his hat and make New York voters forget all the dumb, toadying things he said while he was on the presidential campaign trail in 2007-08.

Mayor Bloomberg is just fine with this. Instead of being the post-partisan character that he’s tried to portray himself as in so many circumstances, Bloomberg came out during his debate with Thompson last week and said he was in support of Giuliani heading for Albany.

And getting big time support from the ever popular Bloomberg may be all that the polarizing Giuliani has going for him. Beyond all the partisan hackery he engaged in on the campaign trail and the likely compromising private sector work he has done since leaving the mayor’s office in 2001 (after trying to extend his term in a crisis-driven manner that would have made Dick Cheney smile), most New Yorkers just don’t want Giuliani to run for any office in New York state. According to a Siena poll released last month, 45% of voters want him to run for neither Governor nor Senator in 2010, and only 27% in all want him to run for governor.

So with Bloomberg a lock to be mayor for four more years, he’s made it clear what he’s doing now: spending his own money to help boost Giuiliani’s prospects. It’s pretty shameful. Instead of finishing off this race with dignity, the 2009 mayoral contest in New York City is being transformed into a proxy for Albany 2010.

Bill Thompson can’t unseat Bloomberg, but instead of releasing milquetoast statements via his campaign about how the mayor needs Giuliani’s help, he can do everyone in the Empire State a favor. By laying into Bloomberg for backing Giuliani, he can start the push back against Rudy in a big way. Bloomberg has already made the first bet, but New York’s Democrats have a better hand, and Thompson can remind Giuliani of this fact by raising him. It’s about the only useful function he can serve at this point, but one that a lot of us would find valuable.