Mike, Rudy, and the GOP

We wrote a little this week about the complicated relationship between Mike and his predecessor, then heard a snippet of it at the Forest Park Republican Club in Queens last night. You do have to be as thoroughbred a Republican as Bloomberg aide John Haggerty to say something like this: "He's done more in four years for the Republican Party than Rudy did in eight," Haggerty said of his boss. This has the virtue of being true. Rudy left no local party to speak of behind. Mike hasn't done much party building either, but at least he's donated vast sums of money to various GOP organizations. Bloomberg killed in Forest Park, by the way. At the end, one guy thanked him for making him quit smoking, and another told him of the Democrats, "None of those schmucks can touch you."