Mayoral Candidate Randy Credico Endorses Eliot Spitzer

Eliot Spitzer not only filed nearly 30,000 petition signatures late last night–he also snagged one of his first political endorsements

Randy Credico (Photo: Twitter/Credico2013)
Randy Credico (Photo: Twitter/Credico2013)

Eliot Spitzer not only filed nearly 30,000 petition signatures late last night–he also snagged one of his first political endorsements in the comptrollers race.

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Randy Credico, a long-shot candidate who uses a stand-up comedy-style delivery to drive his populist, anti-Wall Street message, offered his enthusiastic endorsement to the former governor Thursday night when they happened to bump into each other while filing their petition forms inside the Board of Elections headquarters.

“He will go after Wall Street. He will go after the banks. He will use it aggressively against interests that I attack in my own platform. So I think it’s great to have him in the race,” Mr. Credico told Politicker in an interview in the building’s elevator. “I think he’ll be aggressive. He’s got enough bread to be independent.”

In addition to criticizing Mr. Stringer for his positions on the controversial NYU and Columbia University expansion plans, Mr. Credico said it would have been a shame for any candidate to slide to victory in the Democratic primary without a challenger–as Mr. Stringer had expected to do.

“It’s a Soviet-style election if it’s just Stringer,” he said, noting the fact that Mr. Stringer had originally planned to run for mayor. “He got in because he’s an opportunist. He could have run for mayor. It’s his original gig that he wanted. He went for the one he thought he was gonna coast and not have a primary.”

For his part, Mr. Credico, a self-proclaimed “maverick,” claimed to have collected between 14,000 and 15,000 petition signatures–far more than the 3,750 he needed to qualify for the ballot. And, like Mr. Spitzer, he all but dared his opponents to try to challenge the signatures, which he said he’d collected in mostly lower-income, minority neighborhoods in the Bronx.

“It would be like violating the Voting Rights Act,” he insisted.

And, for what it’s worth, Mr. Credico seemed equally confident in Mr. Spitzer’s chances of winning the race.

“See ya comptroller!” he shouted to Mr. Spitzer as he  left.

Mayoral Candidate Randy Credico Endorses Eliot Spitzer