After accusations that former Mayor Rudy Giuliani was race-baiting while touting Mayor Bloomberg for re-election , the incumbent candidate tried to address the issue. Bloomberg said, "I am phenomenally proud of our record of bringing people together from all neighborhoods and every community. And I think we’ve successfully resisted attempts to divide the city... For the past eight years, I’ve worked well with virtually everyone. I don’t point fingers. I try to lower the volume, the temperature, and not raise it. I’m not going to try to raise it now."
On Sunday, Giuliani had told the Jewish audience in Borough Park, "I worry daily that the city might be turned back to the way it was, to the way it was before 1993. And you know exactly what I’m talking about... This city could very easily be taken back in a very different direction — it could very easily be taken back to the way it was with the wrong political leadership." A number of Democratic lawmakers condemned the remarks, but Patrolmen's Benevolent Association president Patrick Lynch said, "In a campaign, you’ve got a number of different people with a number of different opinions. You don’t always agree with everyone that endorses you."
Giuliani told the Post his comments were valid, "There are books that have been written about this, about how difficult things were, how bad the city was, about how a lot of the programs I started ... turned the city around." But former Mayor David Dinkins—you know, the pre-1993 mayor—said, "I think it is exceedingly unfortunate that Rudy made those comments in the particular community in which he made those remarks, it's sad. He seems to forget that crime started to go down in 1991 under me and [then-Police Commissioner] Ray Kelly."
