The speculation that Rudy Giuliani might try to run for governor in 2010 has one of his earliest supporters pretty excited.  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/giuliani-2009#comments Politics Andrew Cuomo Guy Molinari John Catsimatidis Ray Kelly Rudolph Giuliani Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:58:19 -0400 Azi Paybarah 70493 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2007/molinaris-pride-and-catsimatidis

After hisa press conference on Rudy Giuliani and the presidential race in midtown yesterday, I asked former congressman and Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari about the Republican Party here in New York.

“We are struggling for survival--that’s how serious it is,” he told me.

To save it, it’s going to take “strong leadership, people that have access to money. Money is necessary to rebuild the party to where it was, and good candidates. So a lot of recruiting has to go into the future. And it can be brought back.”

But Molinari isn’t too excited about John Catsimatidis, a late addition to the Republican Party and likely 2009 mayoral candidate.

(After the jump.)  read more »

Here 's former Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari at a rally today that was seemingly designed to respond to the notion that Rudy Giuliani is running against his hometown (and which was also timed perfectly to coincide with Hillary Clinton's appearance across town at a women's event).

The theme was “Rudy Gets Results,” part of a push to remind people that Giuliani cut taxes, reformed welfare, cut crime and improved quality of life.

During a question-and-answer session (above), Molinari was asked about Giuliani's obvious shifts on issues like gun control and gay rights. He said he didn't want to answer: “I’m afraid my words might be changed.” Then he added, “I think we all have changed our mind on a lot of issues.”

We can't really knock Mike for being a politician. If you like him, you want him to win, so you want him to cut the deals and take the stands he needs to take to win. But it does get a bit complicated when he insists on denying that he does these things.

Guy Molinari kind of laid it out for the Bloomberg people when he asked, of that personnel matter: "Does the Mayor have a political death wish?"

The Bloomberg Administration has pretty well purged the mid-level Giuliani loyalists from city government over the last three years, to the delight of some observers and the anger of others. One who hung on, however, was Carmela "Chicky" Piazza, who had been the assistant to chief-of-staff Tony Carbonetti under Giuliani. Before that, she was campaign manager, and then chief-of-staff to Staten Island boss Guy Molinari. Under Bloomberg, she's Director of Administration for the Office of Management and Budget.

"Everyone and their brother called," one Republican told us, among them Molinari, who we're told was livid and cursing. As several Republicans pointed out to us, the last thing Mike needs is more trouble on Staten Island, where he's worked hard to repair his relationship with the people who helped elect him in 2001.

We called Molinari earlier today, and he was reluctant to get into the details:

We asked who'd helped prevent that.

In what we think is a kind of sweet irony, one of Piazza's jobs in the Giuliani Administration was reportedly supervising the patronage operation.