If the mass-transit chief, Joseph J. Lhota, is serious about running for mayor next year, he ought to start worrying about the enthusiastic support he is getting from former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. As Mr. Lhota surely knows - he was Mr. Giuliani's deputy at City Hall, after all - a blessing from his old boss is a political version of the kiss of death.
When it comes to choosing sides in major elections, the former mayor has the Midas touch in reverse. It's a wonder that recipients of his endorsements don't take to wearing cloves of garlic when he is around.
His victims are many:
He supported Gov. Mario M. Cu omo for re-election in 1994, only to watch Mr. Cuomo get clobbered by George E. Pataki. In 1996, he gushed over the Republican vice-presidential nominee, Jack Kemp (and accepted with less enthusiasm the man at the top of the party's national ticket, Bob Dole). You haven't heard much of late about the Dole-Kemp administration, have you?
Mr. Giuliani's heart was clearly with John McCain in the 2000 presidential race, and more openly so in 2008 once his own ambitions crumbled. We know how that turned out. In Kentucky two years ago, he supported a man named Trey Grayson in the Republican Senate primary, a race won by Rand Paul. He preferred Newt Gingrich in 2012, going so far at one point as to dismiss Mitt Romney as making a weather vane look like a symbol of constancy. He then touted Marco Rubio to be Mr. Romney's vice-presidential sidekick. A month ago, he vilified President Obama while campaigning for the Romney-Ryan ticket in New Hampshire, and lost that state.
We could go on.
A notable exception to the Giuliani jinx is Michael R. Bloomberg. For all his billions, Mr. Bloomberg might never have been elected mayor in 2001 had the Sept. 11 attacks not occurred. After that, a Giuliani endorsement was worth something for a while. But soon enough, political normalcy reasserted itself.
Now the former mayor has championed Mr. Lhota, a fellow Republican who is chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Any City Hall ambitions that Mr. Lhota may have are no doubt bolstered by the high marks he deservedly received for getting the subways up and running in reasonably short order after Hurricane Sandy.
“I'd like to see him run,†Mr. Giuliani told The Daily News. That orison alone ought to be enough to give Mr. Lhota the shivers.
It is not yet 2013, but already the race is shaping up as a potentially splendid spectacle. You have to love it when Mr. Bloomberg, who has all but publicly serenaded Christine C. Quinn, is revealed to have privately urged Hillary Rodham Clinton (who doesn't even live in the city) to run for mayor. And to think that Verdi wrote how it's the woman who is fickle.
This could become one of the more intriguing mayoral elections since 1977, when the lineup was packed with political heavyweights. At various stages, they included the ultimately triumphant Edward I. Koch, Mario Cuomo, Bella S. Abzug, Herman Badillo, Percy Sutton, Roy M. Goodman, Barry Farber, Edward N. Costikyan, Joel Harnett - oh yes, and the incumbent mayor, Abraham D. Beame.
Republicans here are usually an afterthought, fitting neatly the description that Will Rogers gave of himself as a confirmed Democrat: a man who belongs to no organized political party.
But what is called the Republican Party in the city can be a handy vehicle for any outsider looking to outflank better-known Democrats, whose politicians, in some cases, have been on stage almost as long as “The Phantom of the Opera.†Mr. Giuliani, a true Republican, used the party that way. So did Mr. Bloomberg, a so rt-of Republican for a time. A full generation has been born and come of age since the last Democrat captured City Hall: David N. Dinkins in 1989.
Now Mr. Lhota is toying with the possibilities. Not that the road will be easy, as Mr. Giuliani himself cautioned. Mr. Lhota is a talented fellow. But even if he dodged the Giuliani curse, he would be running right after having presided over an increase in the subway and bus fare. That ought to make him really popular.
And should he survive both the Rudy hex and the fare raise, a rival just might remind voters that post-Giuliani, Mr. Lhota went to work for James L. Dolan, the unloved jefe of Madison Square Garden.
But that, too, need not be an insurmountable problem. If there are no Knicks or Rangers fans in the electorate, Mr. Lhota should be fine.
E-mail Clyde Haberman: haberman@nytimes.com
