Restoration

We picked up Tom Ognibene's simple, photocopied fundraising letter last night, and his message is right there in the first sentence:

"I seek to restore the Giuliani tradition to New York City government."

It's still an open question whether somebody who looks a lot like a protest candidate can get people to write him checks, or give him votes, in the hope of confining Bloomberg to "Lenora Fulani's extremist 'independence' line only."

But Ognibene told us he thought he'd already had his effect in, among other things, pushing Mike to appeal the gay marriage decision.

"I put him in a squeeze," he told us gleefully.

Tom was also eager to correct any suggestion in our earlier post that there's any personal animus between him and Queens Republican leader Serphin Maltese. He also denied threatening Serph with taking away his chairmanship if Queens didn't endorse his mayoral campaign. Serph, he told us, might have been under that impression at some point, but Tom told him not to worry.