Posted on 01/31/2007 8:47:58 AM PST by Reagan Man
Rudy Giuliani runs for President, if he runs, from the same place where George Bush still tries to run his war in Iraq - from the rubble and ashes of Sept. 11.
Giuliani doesn't run from any city he still governs, or any state, or even from the U.S. Senate. He runs from a place called Sept. 11, and you would, too.
Giuliani runs, if he runs, from a job to which he was never elected, just appointed. Or perhaps anointed. It's the job of America's Mayor, and it is the best job he is ever going to have, one with which he can have a longer run than a Supreme Court justice if he plays his cards right.
When you are the mythical mayor of America, instead of a declared candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, it means nobody wants to talk about what kind of mayor of New York City you were before Sept. 11, 2001. That is a real good thing for Giuliani.
There are a lot of reasons why Giuliani should quit while he is ahead in some of the polls, but the best is this: the inevitable collision between some of the myths that have grown up around him in the last six years and the facts.
If the other guys in the race just let him run on Sept. 11, let that be the only thing in play - "It really is all people see," one veteran Democrat said last weekend in New Hampshire - then he wins the nomination. Only it doesn't work that way, not in a world where everything is in play, and where the whole process, with each passing election, becomes dumber than Britney Spears.
The only thing Giuliani has run since leaving office is the booming franchise of Giuliani. He has written a huge best seller and made a small fortune giving speeches all over the world. He has run a lucrative consulting business, one that enables him to fly down to a place like Mexico City for a few days, explain to them how they can reduce the crime rate and then he pockets big change.
Only now he sounds as if he is talking himself into making a run for the nomination it is hard to see him ever getting, one that is hard to see him ever getting from the yahoos in his party, even if he is ahead in some polls the way Hillary Clinton is ahead, mostly for being famous.
But Giuliani ought to ask himself how he gets the nomination of a right-wing, red-state party with his positions in favor of stem-cell research and gun control and gay civil marriages and abortion. If he really does make his run, how do those views play on the Dick Cheney news channels, or in the Church of the Religious Right?
Giuliani ought to ask how long he will be on the stump before everybody starts banging away at him with Bernard Kerik, his police commissioner and former business partner, someone Giuliani thought would be a tremendous head of Homeland Security after turning the job down himself. Kerik is another one who wants you to think he cleaned up crime in New York City all by himself, another guy with a badge who thought the law applied to everybody except him.
Kerik will be in play the way Giuliani's second wife, Donna Hanover, and the way she found out about the breakup of her marriage on television, will be in play. So will the whole subject of race relations in the city during Giuliani's time running it. And even the conditions under which the rescue workers worked at Ground Zero.
Did Giuliani find the best in himself during those first days after the planes flew into our buildings? He did. He did his job and, in doing that job, got carried along by the best in the city, as if he was one of the ironworkers who came walking over the bridge from Stuyvesant High School that first afternoon, coming from everywhere, carrying their tools in leather bags, the ones who told the police, "We're here to work."
And when the police asked them how that day, the ironworkers said, "We cut steel, you're gonna need us." And kept walking towards the ruins of the World Trade Center.
When people see Giuliani now, they see that. They see it all, with Giuliani in the foreground. They see the city getting up, slowly at first, then defiantly. The life of the city changed forever that day. So did Giuliani's. No longer was he a man with a complicated life running the world's most complicated city. He was seen as a hero.
America's Mayor. He runs, if he runs, from there. And if it was only that, if how you did that day and in the days to follow, he wins. It isn't the only issue. There are a lot of them with Rudy Giuliani and always were and always will be.
He never ran for the Senate in the end; he never ran for governor. Now the yes-men he's always had around him tell him he can get the nomination for President. It would be easy if it were all Sept. 11, 2001. The problem for Giuliani is Sept. 10.
What did you think about Lupica's previous column?
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/491485p-413979c.html
Can't hide from war gone wrong
By Mike Lupica
It was a historic State of the Union that just felt like one more manufactured event from this President, George W. Bush acting as if he wanted to talk about almost anything else before getting to a war he and his people manufactured.
-snip-
Rudy is NOT a liberal. He is a tough as nails moderate, RR (real republican).
Except that it isn't truthful.
I find it hilarious that someone has the gall to call themselves "Reagan Man" while championing the lies of dyed-in-the-wool leftist Reagan-hater Mike Lupica.
Moderates don't support abortion on demand and confiscatory firearms laws.
There has been no fabrication by Lupica. You just don't like the article because it nails Rudy as the empty suit he's been for the last five years. Granted, Lupica might be an anti-war liberal. So what. Beyond that, Rudy`s time as Mayor of NYCity might have left the city in better shape then when he found it. Does that qualify Rudy to be POTUS? I think not. I say NO.
What strikes a nerve is that the Rudy Haters are regurgitating the rantings of anti-American liberal hacks such as Mike Lupica as their rallying cries and don't even have the courage to admit it.
I actually agree.
Let me get this straight. You're saying that you don't think you'll support Rudy Giuliani?
TAXES: Giuliani did cut the marginal city income tax rates, reducing taxes by some $2.0-billion from 1996-2001, but those cuts only offset the $1.8-billion increase in city income tax rates put in place by Mayor Dinkins a few years earlier. In the end, taxes were actually cut by a modest $200-million. Freezing the 12.5% surcharge on high wage earners was good, but Giuliani didn't attempt to abolish that surcharge. Nor did Giuliani abolish the city income tax. The primary reason Rudy and the City Council agreed to cut taxes, was to make NYCity more appealing to new businesses thinking about locating/relocating to the Big Apple. A smart move, however, overall, Rudy left office with NYCity the highest taxed big city in America, with some of the highest income taxes, property taxes and ultility rates in the nation.
GOVT SPENDING: From 1997 to 2001, spending under Giuliani went up 32%. More then double the rate of inflation. Rudy left NYCity with a $2.0 billion deficit and a $42-billion debt. Second largest debt after the federal government. Giuliani also added 15,000 new teachers to the city employment rolls. Increasing the membership of two major liberal organizations, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
"The scope of government was not reduced at all. The mayor abandoned his most visible initiative in this sphere—the proposed sale of the city hospital system—after a struggle with the unions and defeats in the courts. He did cut costs in social services; even before the new federal welfare reforms took effect in 1997, the city had begun to significantly reduce caseloads. But money saved on social services has only helped to subsidize big increases in other categories. Today the array of social services sponsored and partially funded by the city—from day care to virtually guaranteed housing—is as wide as ever.
"In the final analysis, Mayor Giuliani sought to make the city deliver services more efficiently—not to make the city deliver fewer services. Gains in efficiency were offset, however, by a spike in the costs of outsourced contracts (see point 2 below). Thus, in two areas where inroads might have been made, the city instead failed to reduce spending."
"1. Personnel Increases. In 1995–96, the city entered into a series of collective bargaining agreements with its public-employee unions. In addition to granting pay increases that ended up roughly equaling inflation, the city promised not to lay off any workers for the life of the contracts. These agreements were expected to add $2.2 billion to the budget by fiscal 2001. But that estimate didn’t reckon with renewed growth in the number of city employees. After dipping in Giuliani’s first two years, the full-time headcount rose from 235,069, in June 1996 to over 253,000 by November 2000. Thanks largely to this growth in the workforce, the total increase in personnel service costs since 1995 has been $4 billion.
2. "Outsourced Services. The failure to shrink the scope of city government made it all the more imperative that Mayor Giuliani vastly increase its efficiency. In the attempt to increase productivity, the mayor farmed out some city services to private contractors. But as the number of outsourced contracts doubled under Giuliani, contractual expenses also nearly doubled—from $3 billion to $5.8 billion. While it may be argued that the city saved money by outsourcing these services, the net savings turned out to be marginal at best. In practice, outsourcing proved to be more of a bargaining chip in negotiations with unions than a serious means of pruning expenses."
More hard evidence that Rudy Giuliani was NO fiscal conservative. Another run-of-the-mill NYCity liberal.
I pointed out two specific lies by Lupica which you completely faield to address.
You just don't like the article because it nails Rudy as the empty suit he's been for the last five years.
He's run a successful consulting and financial advisory business over the last 5 years.
To a leftist, maybe a successful businessman is an "empty suit" - but to those of us who actually work for a living, running a successful business is an accomplishment.
Might be? He is a complete Democrat moonbat and has been for decades.
So what.
He's a liar and his oped piece is trash.
Beyond that, Rudy`s time as Mayor of NYCity might have left the city in better shape then when he found it.
Might have? The city was completely transformed. I'm a eyewitness.
Does that qualify Rudy to be POTUS? I think not. I say NO.
Being mayor of NYC is a much tougher job than being a Congressman - yet Tancredo is running.
Being mayor of NYC is a much tougher job than being a Senator - yet McCain is running.
Being mayor of NYC is a tougher job than being Governor of MA - yet Romney is running.
In terms of actual executive experience, Giuliani's resume is better than most. Like our current President, he can run a government and he can run a business (btw, was Bush an "empty suit" when he ran for governor of TX as a businessman? Was Reagan an "empty suit" when he ran for governor of CA as a businessman?)
He is, however, wrong on many key issues.
And he has definite character flaws.
Those are the reasons why he should not be President.
So who are you supporting for President?
I lived in New York when Rudy became mayor and throughout his two terms. I saw with my own eyes how his policies and his toughness transformed a suposedly "ungovernable" city. He was hated by all the right people - the race pimps, the civil service unions, the criminals, etc. Every week he was on the radio answering his critics. He never hid from anything. I remember when he spit in the eye of the Saudi prince who wanted to contribute $10M if only we would say a few mea culpas. I was in lower Manhattan on 9/11 and I'll always remember Rudy's bravery that day. Frankly, I think our country is in a fight for its survival and there is no one else I know in politics today who has been in the line of fire as much as Rudy. He may have personal issues and his social policies are not my cup of tea, but if he runs, I'm going to go door-to-door for him.
This has nothing to do with me or whether Lupica hated Ronald Reagan. Try addressing the issue of Rudy Giuliani`s liberalism and his lack of support for conservative issues while mayor, or since he left office. Just what are you afraid of? The truth will set you free. LOL Open your eyes already. Your defense of Rudy is a defense of liberalism.
I live in NYC and was here during the Dinkins debacle and also witnessed Rudy's turnaround and cleanup of the city and was also here on 9/11 and still remember the smell of the incinerated dead and the smoke and dust that wafted over the city as well as the fighter jets patrolling the airspace.
It's sad that the Rudy haters are too blind to understand the strengths of the man and what he would bring to the Presidency during these trying times.
Who is FOR abortion, FOR the gay agenda, FOR illegal immigrants and against the second amendment. Besides, he's openly cheated onhis wife. Not really conservative values.
So who are you supporting for President?
The fact that he was able to actually roll back any taxes at all was an accomplishment - the study doesn't mention all the tax increases Giuliani successfully fought off despite great opposition from the City Council.
Giuliani was never in a position to "abolish" any taxes unilaterally without Council approval, anymore than President Bush can "abolish" the Federal income tax without Congressional approval.
City spending - which Giuliani never had unilateral control over either - did go up 32% in the last 4 years of his term.
Of course, tax receipts increased even more than that over those 4 years and the city's population grew by over a quarter million in that period.
I'll point out that increased spending on law enforcement was a necessary expense, and Giuliani had to accede to a ton of union-driven contract negotiations to get the City Council to agree to those l;aw enforcement initiatives.
Giuliani was not able to achieve perfection, nor was he able to ignore the City Council and do whatever he wanted.
He was blocked and countered by every entrneched bureaucracy in NYC from day one and stuill managed to do some pretty incredible things.
NYC was less taxed when he left after 8 years than when he began - to a longtime NYC resident that qualifies as an heroic feat of fiscal conservatism.
There are a hundred other little details here that could be mentioned - like the fact that it is difficult to really cut costs when you outsource a NYC contract because of the stringent NY state rules on allocating business to minority-owned firms, etc.
That tired old refrain again? You might as well have said "You're not the core I am -- NEENER!"
It's pretty funny that I'd be mixed up with one of the Libertarians around here. I'm a VSR. The "I'm going to hold my breath until you do what I say crowd" is pretty small IIRC.
I WILL support an electable conservative but I don't consider Rudy to be one.
One was a throw away line about Hanover. No big deal. The other was not a lie. You said:
>>>>>The obvious falsehoods are the statement that Giuliani wants to hide his pre-9/11 as mayor of NYC ...
Lupica never said that. Reread what he wrote.
When you are the mythical mayor of America, instead of a declared candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, it means nobody wants to talk about what kind of mayor of New York City you were before Sept. 11, 2001.
He never said Rudy doesn't want to talk about his record prior to 9-11. You posted a falsehood.
In the world of politics, Rudy has been an empty suit for the last five years. As a conservative, Rudy is way out in leftfield. Rudy is a lifelong liberal and folks in fly over country will not vote for Rudy as the GOP nominee. Period.
In the Colorado primary, I'll be very happy to vote for Duncan Hunter, Newt Gingrich or Tom Tancredo to be the GOP nominee. In the general election, while not perfect candidates, I haven't ruled out voting for Mitt Romney or even John McCain. Rudy Giuliani will not get my vote, based on his lifetime liberal record. He is not a conservative and his choice at the top of the ticket would fracture the GOP and allow a Democrat to win.
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