October 28, 2006 Bloomberg Sends Troops to Help Lieberman
By DIANE CARDWELL
In his battle for re-election to the United States Senate without the backing of the Democratic Party, Joseph I. Lieberman is deploying a secret weapon in the race's closing days: a sophisticated operation to identify and turn out voters, courtesy of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
The Bloomberg group includes several top-level operatives who played key roles in the mayor's decisive re-election last year or who are in the administration, and have taken leaves from their jobs to work on Mr. Lieberman's campaign.
Since Mr. Lieberman lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut to Ned Lamont, they have helped open campaign offices, devised a strategy to reach voters and are corralling enough volunteers to cover 2,800 shifts at more than 700 polling sites on Election Day, Nov. 7.
Given that Mr. Lieberman does not have a party apparatus to help build his field operation, the efforts of the Bloomberg team could prove critical in one of the most closely watched races in the nation.
"There is no independent network," said Stu Loeser, Mr. Bloomberg's chief spokesman, who played the same role in the re-election effort. "To a certain extent, we were the last independent campaign."
The workers on loan are the most vivid example yet of how Mr. Bloomberg, a Republican who often breaks with his party on issues, could build a permanent political apparatus to support like-minded independent candidates across the country - if not a national bid for himself.
With his 2005 re-election campaign behind him, Mr. Bloomberg has been relishing his role as kingmaker, endorsing Gov. Rod Blagojevich in Illinois and Gov. M. Jodi Rell in Connecticut, raising money for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in California and appearing in a television commercial for Representative Christopher Shays in Connecticut. (Mr. Blagojevich is a Democrat, and the others are Republicans.)
But his work for Mr. Lieberman, which includes substantial fund-raising and Mr. Bloomberg's first out-of-state stumping in addition to the gift of manpower, marks his most intense and direct engagement in someone else's political bid. It may not only broaden his image of nonpartisan, influence-free pragmatism, but it could also test how well his political machine can function in an independent campaign with national repercussions.
Just after losing the Democratic primary, Mr. Lieberman's campaign enlisted Josh Isay, who had worked on Mr. Bloomberg's re-election campaign, as the new media consultant. From his administration, the mayor dispatched Korinne Kubena, the chief of staff to Kevin Sheekey, a deputy mayor who oversaw Mr. Bloomberg's two mayoral campaigns, to direct the get-out-the-vote effort for Mr. Lieberman. Brian Honan, who was the deputy field director in the mayoral campaign and now works in the Bloomberg administration's state lobbying operation, is serving as Ms. Kubena's deputy.
Ariel Dvorkin, an administration aide, is helping compile a voter database for Mr. Lieberman; Josh Gold, who was on Mr. Bloomberg's campaign field staff, is now the deputy director of Mr. Lieberman's Stamford campaign office; and Neil Giacobbi, who became chief of staff to City Councilman David Yassky after running the volunteer effort for Mr. Bloomberg, is the director of the Lieberman office in Stamford.
"The mayor has obviously decided to try to make a difference in a few races in which he believes in the candidate," Mr. Sheekey said. "In some places you can help them by doing a fund-raiser in New York, others where you can help by showing up for a day, and others where you can help by putting folks on the ground."
Lieberman aides say that Mr. Bloomberg brings a certain gloss and legitimacy to Connecticut, where he appears to have a strong appeal.
"He is an icon of independence and straight talk and putting the public interest over party consideration," said Dan Gerstein, Mr. Lieberman's communication director. "He's a great practitioner and advocate for the kind of politics Joe Lieberman practices."
Aides to both men say they have known each other since before Mr. Bloomberg became mayor and admire each other's accomplishments and independent streaks. Described as having a casual, friendly relationship, they have run into each other at events in Washington over the years and have worked together on various issues involving the city, including domestic security.
Capitalizing on all this, the Lieberman campaign plans for Mr. Bloomberg to greet commuters with the senator on Monday morning in Stamford, and to attend a fund-raiser there. Mr. Bloomberg headlined a fund-raiser in Chicago this week, which raised close to $230,000, according to the campaign. He plans to hold a third fund-raiser at his Upper East Side town house on Wednesday.
Lieberman aides say the money the mayor is raising is crucial, but it is the staff additions that represent an unusual degree of engagement for Mr. Bloomberg and show how he has developed his own potent political team to deploy as he wishes.
That team brings with it an approach that has been under development for some time and is similar to the one that President Bush used in his re-election bid in 2004. For Mr. Bloomberg's first bid in 2001, Mr. Sheekey said, the campaign engaged in a targeting operation that merged voter information with consumer data to identify potential supporters and tailor specific messages to them. That method allows campaigns to identify voters by tastes and habits whether or not they live in an area where support for a particular party is strong.
In that 2001 campaign, outreach was primarily through mail and telephone, since the campaign could not recruit a strong contingent of workers on behalf of a political unknown, Mr. Sheekey said.
By 2005, though, the Bloomberg team was able to bolster its voter identification effort with an aggressive operation involving 50,000 workers fanning out through the city to knock on doors and reinforce the mayor's message, Mr. Sheekey said.
With a version of that machine in Connecticut, Mr. Bloomberg's aides are coy about where it might go next, particularly whether to support other like-minded candidates or even the mayor himself.
"There are a lot of things the mayor had done in his campaign which the Lieberman campaign needed," Mr. Sheekey said. "You get involved in races where you want to make a difference and where you can make a difference, in that order."