Team Giulani is on the defensive offensive after the Daily News revealed what was written in a presidential planning binder left behind by a Giuliani aide. Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny Mindel calls it a "dirty trick" that someone has played. From the Daily News:
"This is clearly a dirty trick," said Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny Mindel. "The voters are sick and tired of this kind of thing."
Mindel said that while working on the 2006 campaign trail, a Giuliani aide lost a piece of luggage containing the paper.
"During one leg of his campaign travel, all luggage was removed from a private plane and later put back on," she said in a statement. "However, one staffer's bag was not returned.
"After repeated requests over the course of a few days, the bag was finally returned with the document inside. Because our staffer had custody of this document at all times except for this one occasion, it is clear that the document was removed from the luggage and photocopied."
Well, duh - you always carry on your important documents! Or at least use a special code and require all your staffers to have a decoder ring! The private plane in question was used by Giuliani during a November trip help then-Florida gubernatorial candidate Charles Crist, who also got help from Senator John McCain during his campaign. While speculation is now on who Mindel is implying may be behind the alleged heist (McCain...Mitt Romney...), let's face it: The Giuliani enemies list is very long.
Of course, Mindel has said that binder was "very outdated" and it's true - no one is that surprised that someone inside Giuliani's team would think he has a lot of "insurmountable" baggage. But having the little details of how Rudy could "categorize and honor his donors with terms from baseball" is pretty embarrassing to have out in the open. And the fact the binder/dossier/Trapper Keeper may have been one belonging to chief fundraiser Anne Dickerson? The Daily News has an article to counter Mindel's claims: "It's bad news no matter how you spin it."
The flap has given Giuliani's rivals opportunity to snark. McCain's chief political strategist John Weaver said, "I though [Giuliani Partners] was a security company" and called the dirty tricks claims "ridiculous" : “If I were them, I would search in the grassy knoll.” And fundraiser Georgette Mosbacher who has been working with McCain told the Observer, "It shows that, potentially, he does not have a first-class team. You are running for President; you don’t leave things like that around. That doesn’t happen.
And Ben Smith, the reporter who made the scoop, will be leaving the Daily News; he will focus on 2008 campaign coverage for The Politico. He makes two good points today: This is not the first time Giuliani's people have looked at his vulnerabilities and apparently "Christmas elves" gave him the notebook (take that, O'Reilly and your War on Christmas!). Luckily, Smith will be checking in about NYC politics at Room Eight.
Top photograph of Giuliani speaking at a conference last November by Virginia Mayo/AP; bottom photograph of Giuliani during an Inner Circle Charity Show from City Archives
