What Ruben Diaz Jr. learned from his father

The biggest danger to the mayoral campaign of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. might just be his controversial father, New York City Councilman Rubén Díaz Sr. The elder’s long track record of inflammatory rhetoric puts his namesake in an uncomfortable political position as Diaz Jr. makes a run for Gracie Mansion. “(What) I need from him is to be disciplined in his comments,” Diaz Jr. said in this week’s profile in City & State.

But Diaz Jr. made some rhetorical moves in his keynote speech at the City & State’s Bronx Power 100 event this week aimed at changing the conversation about his father from one focused on controversy to the positive aspects of his father’s character. “Me being the son of a preacher man,” Diaz Jr. said as he waved a copy of City & State, “is less about who my father is and about our differences in opinion and there should be more about the values that are instilled in me – values about making people’s lives better, values about fighting a good fight.”

Watch Diaz Jr. speak about his father below: