Far be it from us to advise Mayor Bloomberg on electioneering, but we wonder if he has thought through his plan to campaign with hated former mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He warmed up for it during the recent mayoral debate, when he said Giuliani would make a good governor. And someone planted an apparently bogus story about the two Mayors battling for Yankee Stadium playoff seating, which we assume was circulated to get their names mentioned together.

Admittedly they have chosen appropriate venues. So far it is revealed that they will team up in Borough Park this weekend, where the Hasidim are very Giuliani-friendly, for a Jewish Community Council breakfast. And on Halloween they'll join Beep James Molinaro in Staten Island, residents of which are big fans.

But if the duo stray into, say, Park Slope or other such communities, or even if word gets around, their pairing may stir untoward results. It's been shown that Bloomberg polls much worse when he's identified (inaccurately) as a Republican. Hanging with the former GOP Preisdential contender -- admittedly the only one of those who would conceivably campaign with Bloomberg, now that Nixon is dead -- may make people forget the Mayor's carefully calculated switch to independent status.

​The candidates for public advocate sparred with one another in tonight's debate on NY1. Mark Green went after rival Bill De Blasio's campaign finance record. The milder-mannered Brooklyn councilman tried to portray Green as being removed from local politics and the changes the city has undergone over the past eight years.

After a cordial start, Green went belligerent early. The Air America radio talker asked De Blasio pointedly if De Blasio would disclose his letter to the city's Conflict of Interest Board regarding issues surrounding contributions and payments made from non-profits to which he had allocated money as a councilman. Later Green asked whether De Blasio would disclose his contract with Data and Field Services -- the for-profit branch of the Working Families Party -- and went so far as to suggest that de Blasio might be publicly investigated after the election.

De Blasio countered that Green's allegations were inaccurate and offensive. He stood his ground, but avoided answering detailed questions. He pointed out that the city's Campaign Finance Board had awarded him tens of thousands of dollars in matching funds -- something the organization wouldn't have done if it found that he'd evaded campaign finance laws. He also implied that Green was making too much out of an issue that had already been resolved: the Conflict of Interest Board had cleared him of any illegal conduct. Finally, he said he was planning to disclose more details "to his friends at the Daily News."

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Back in 2007, Mitt Romney tried to jumpstart his doomed presidential campaign by freeping the online voting for the Value Voters Summit straw poll for a narrow first place finish over Mike Huckabee.

This year, with no online voting, Huckabee won the second straw poll decisively with 28% of the vote. Romney eked out a second-place finish with 12.4 percent, just barely ahead of Tim Pawlenty's 12.23, Sarah Palin's 12.06, and Rep. Mike Pence's 11.89.

Huckabee and Romney squabbled over healthcare in their respective speeches, but saved their edgier soundbites for Obama, with Huckabee casting Democrats as the priests of Baal (pdf) and Romney endorsing tea-partying "patriots" and Joe Wilson's "You lie." Overall, speakers achieved consensus on town hall protesters not being racists or in any way, shape or form an "angry mob"

Tony Perkins, head of Summit sponsor the Family Research Council, called Huckabee "well oiled" (no idea) and praised his "potential," but hastened to point out that the FRC wants a "fully-rounded conservative candidate" and hasn't committed the support of their PAC to anyone yet.

This will, no doubt, be somewhat dampening to anyone who thought that a decisive 28% of the less than a third of religious conservative conference attendees who bothered to vote in a straw poll three years ahead of the election were actually settling something.

​Rudolph Giuliani is preparing for his expected gubernatorial run by shoring up his Republican credentials. He's been heavily involved in the state party's doings, and now he's doing his bit for the national party by making speeches for Texas Governor Rick Perry. Perry gave Giuliani a much-needed endorsement during his disastrous 2008 Presidential run, even though Perry's gun policy varies slightly from Giuliani's (that is, Petty favors them for schoolteachers, in banks and churches, etc) and has since distinguished himself mainly by calling for Texas to secede from the United States, which continues to excite local yahoos and peckerwoods. Perry needs Giuliani's help with the 2010 GOP gubernatorial nomination because the Governor is now considered so far out that Senator Kay Hutchison is running against him. Giuliani will speak on Perry's behalf at some fundraisers on September 15 and 16.

​Damn, August already -- and we haven't paid our rent or looked at the local candidates much besides the mayoral prospects. Here's a fast look at what contenders for three big spots have been up to lately:

Manhattan D.A.: Richard Aborn appeared with former NYPD Commissioner and current LAPD Chief Bill Bratton at City Hall today to unveil a "detailed proposal to improve the use of technology in the DA's office and increase accountability and oversight analysis" called PreventStat (like CompStat, get it?). Cy Vance is trying to get past that Spitzer fundraiser thing, but over the weekend did an interview on WPIX's News Closeup and spent time in Harlem at the Paradise Baptist Church and the Harlem Salvation Army Charity Basketball Game for Special Needs Children. Leslie Crocker Snyder won the support of Al Sharpton confreres Sanford Rubenstein and Michael Hardy, and sent out some literature which Liz Benjamin questioned.

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First, the Bloomberg mayoral campaign produced a tough-on-crime ad featuring a "27th" NYPD Precinct that only exists on television.

Now, O'Dwyer's reporter Kevin McCauley has accused the campaign of using fake public school kids in a brochure that lauds Bloomberg's record with city schools.

McCauley explains on the Web site odwyerpr.com that he got a copy of a brochure (pictured) titled "Mike Bloomberg's Public School Progress Report" in the mail and was "mystified" when he opened it.

"The centerpiece of the brochure showed Bloomberg chatting with two young girls standing in a school hallway. Lo and behold, there stood my daughter's classmates shooting the breeze with Mayor Mike, standing in the hall of their school, Xaverian, a private Catholic high school in Brooklyn."

McCauley writes he found out the girls were recruited by the Genesis middle school program at Xaverian to do a photo-shoot and television spot with Bloomie, and that they were asked to bring a change of clothes as their Catholic school uniforms would be a dead give away they weren't from a PS.

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While those tiresome major-party candidates for mayor are doing the usual grip-and-grins and donation-grubbing, Green Party mayoral candidate Reverend Billy energized his base this weekend at Tompkins Square Park, where he held one of his "Weekly Sunday BBQs," though there was no apparent roasting going on (good thing, or the city would have fined him for it). Along with the usual uplift, the Reverend marched his flock over to Ray's Candy Store on Avenue A and witnessed for owner Ray Alvarez -- whose services to the neighborhood, we note with surprise, were also recently lauded by the conservative Christian magazine World. Maybe this presents an ecumenical inroad for the Reverend to get the church folks into his campaign. Has he talked to Calvin Butts? Photo via EV Grieve.

Last night three candidates for Mayor of New York -- Michael Bloomberg, councilmember Tony Avella, and comptroller Bill Thompson -- attended the Working Families Party Mayoral Forum at the Hotel Trades Council on West 44th Street. (We should mention that Green Party candidate Reverend Billy wanted to be at the forum, but was excluded; "The Working Families Party have sent a cynical signal," his office tells us. "New York is not a corporation. New York is a city. A city in a democracy. Let's debate like it is.")

The forum resembled the political "debates" with which we are all too familiar, but each candidate was grilled separately with more or less the same questions. Talking Points Memo liveblogged it, and we'll probably have more on the event later. For now, some quick highlights:

Mike Bloomberg. He bragged on development in places like "Greenpoint, Williamsburg, West Chelsea" that has brought "good paying jobs to neighborhoods where nobody could do anything before." He admitted some construction jobs may not pay top dollar, but explained that some projects "just could not be [built] at prevailing wages" and so were done "on a B schedule, if you will."

On a proposal to make employers pay for sick days, Bloomberg said he was looking at it but "I don't want small businesses to cut their work forces or close" because they can't afford such a requirement. Interestingly, he said one reason he "made a point" of not closing many schools for swine flu was "because there were so many parents who couldn't afford to stay home and take care of their kids."

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First we got Cy Vance's Pride Parade pictures. Then Richard Aborn sent some. We teased Leslie Crocker Snyder's campaign about her absence from our Pride photo spreads. And guess what? The Voice gets results! Here she is marching down Fifth Avenue with assemblyman Micah Kellner and her supporters from the Stonewall Democrats. So we've established this much: all three Democratic Manhattan D.A. candidates like gay people, parades, and publicity. We think this speaks well of them.

Manhattan D.A. Candidate Richard Aborn's people must have noticed that we had a photo of Cy Vance at the Pride Parade, so they sent us this. We don't want to lose our hard-won reputation for objectivity, so here he is (the tall drink o' water in the middle) with some of his supporters from Glad & Lesbian Independent Democrats. Leslie Crocker Snyder, we're still waiting for your Pride pix. We know you have the Stonewall Democrats' endorsement, but ours is an increasingly visual age.

Update: Vance strikes back! He sends a statement on Madoff: "The severity of this sentence is a fair reflection of the damage he inflicted... It is essential for prosecutorial offices like the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to play an aggressive role, as it has historically, in investigating and prosecuting cases involving financial fraud." OK, so we know he's a hardass.

Update 2: Stanley Patz, father of the famously long-missing Etan Patz, has endorsed Leslie Crocker Snyder for D.A. "I'm confident that as Manhattan district attorney, Judge Snyder will pursue justice for Etan" and "work every day to protect all of Manhattan's children," he says.