Howard Wolfson, The Bloomberg Campaign’s “High-Profile Attack Dog”

Michael Bloomberg won a third term as New York City mayor tonight, defeating Democratic challenger Bill Thompson in a race that was much closer than his last campaign against Fernando Ferrer. This despite Bloomberg being predicted to spend almost $100 million on his campaign, which is already, “the most expensive self-financed campaign in United States history,” according to NY1.

The New York Times reports that when first planning Bloomberg’s re-election, his top guru Kevin Sheekey, “urged him to quickly send a warning to potential challengers. He suggested recruiting a high-profile attack dog for the campaign and disclosing it to the press. The choice was obvious: Howard Wolfson, the combative former communications director for Hillary Rodham Clinton‘s presidential run.”

Indeed Wolfson had a busy day in the press, forcing updates to Daily News stories at 7pm and appearing on NY1, in addition to his multitude of other duties running PR for the mayor’s campaign. Wolfson made waves last July when he joined Fox News as a contributor. He also had somewhat of a fallout with Burson-Marsteller CEO Mark Penn in the wake of the aforementioned Clinton presidential campaign. Can Wolfson count Bloomberg squeaking buy as a win? No doubt he’ll try.

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