What Is Their Message and Who Sponsors Them?
Now you see them and now you don’t.
They are a half dozen bearded, disheveled derelicts armed with window washing squeegees and buckets of water, men who appear to have been transported in a time machine from the streets of Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s New York City, circa 1992.
They pile out of a rattletrap blue van near a Giuliani for President campaign stop in Des Moines or Davenport, Iowa and halt traffic, quickly wash windshields and then try to hustle startled drivers for some change for their services before quickly vanishing in the van.
The squeegee bum assaults are always very near a Giuliani rally or some Giuliani glad-handing at a cafe or a private fund-raising soirée.
So who are the squeegee bums and what message are they trying to convey with their hit-and-run guerrilla tactics? Is it political theater or political protest?
“Hey man, I can’t talk about it. I’d lose my meal ticket,” one of the squeegee bums panted one recent morning in Sioux City when a reporter ran beside him as the man sprinted back to the blue van after washing several windshields. “Figure it out for yourself,” he called as the van’s rear door slammed and the vehicle lurched away.
Figure this out, too: On the rear bumper of the van was a Giuliani for President sticker.
It would appear that a shadowy Giuliani opponent is using an odd form of street theater to remind voters of the not-so-nice side of the former New York mayor. After Giuliani was elected mayor, he and his police commissioner declared war on homeless men who panhandled motorists stopped at street lights by pretending to clean their windshields and then demanding money for the generally unwanted service.
One by one, most of the Republican presidential candidates have disavowed — off the record, of course — any connection with these circa 2007 squeegee bums.
“It’s very clever and funny when you watch these guys as they perform,” said an official of one Republican candidate’s campaign. “But it’s certainly way too sophisticated for the typical Iowa voter. I think they scratch their heads and say, ‘Whaaaaa?’”
“Can you imagine how long a real squeegee bum would be tolerated at a stop light in downtown Des Moines?” he asked.
On another morning recently, this time in Dubuque on the Mississippi River, the intrepid reporter trotted beside one of he squeegee bums as he hustled back to the van. “What’s next after you wear out this squeegee bum gig?” the reporter asked as the man climbed into the van’s rear door.
“Wait until we all show up wearing Bernie Kerik face masks,” he called.
Ah yes, that might be less than subtle. So much so that even an Iowan might grasp it.
Keirik was police commissioner during some of Giuliani’s mayoral years. And it was Giuliani who recommended Keirik be nominated by President Bush as head of Homeland Security. Within weeks of the nomination, Keirik was dropped by the White House after various unsavory details of Keirik’s past emerged.
A phalanx of Bernie Keiriks prancing through the streets near a Giuliani rally would likely get more than a little attention.