When 81-year-old Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro called Lady Gaga a “slut” (in the, uh, “pure,” nonsexual sense) for smoking weed in public, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, an upstart mayoral hopeful and friend of Gaga’s parents, jumped to her defense at the risk of interborough war. Gaga “remains an Upper West Sider at heart” and “social justice activist and a real leader for marriage equality in this country,” Stringer said, grabbing a few headlines that won’t hurt with name recognition while being chivalrous in the process. Today, the Queen Monster returned the favor by tweeting, “To @scottmstringer of Manhattan, thanku for your support of my activism as a new yorker. You show political integrity + a modern vernacular” to her nearly 30 million hard-core followers. In an hour, the message was retweeted more than 700 times, most likely a record for tweets mentioning a borough president. Added to Justin Bieber and Scarlett Johansson, Stringer is building quite the coalition.
