Posted on 02/26/2007 7:08:07 AM PST by areafiftyone
When Rudolph Giuliani first ran for mayor of New York in 1989, he made a critical mistake. Assuming that he'd be running against the blue-collar, socially conservative Democrat Ed Koch, Giuliani cast himself as a liberal. Playing against his tough-guy image, he spent his first months on the campaign trail talking about the victims of homelessness and AIDS and drug abuse, causes that united elite liberals and poor minority voters while leaving the city's shrinking middle class cold. The prosecutor who brought down mob boss Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno and Wall Street renegade Ivan Boesky tried to reinvent himself as the original "compassionate conservative," and the ethnic Catholic who had once considered the priesthood flip-flopped on abortion and became an avowed pro-choicer.
Then fate intervened: David Dinkins defeated Koch in the Democratic primary, and Giuliani became, by necessity if not by design, the candidate of the unfashionable middle-class strivers living in the outer boroughs, voters who recognized something of themselves in Giuliani, a self-made Italian-American from Brooklyn. Thus was born the polarizing, hard-charging, and proudly uncompassionate Giuliani who, after losing to Dinkins in 1989, beat him in 1993 and went on to transform New York.
Almost two decades later, though, Giuliani seems at risk of following his 1989 playbook, selling himself as something he's not--this time, a George W. Bush Republican--in the hopes that his celebrity and high favorability ratings will allow him to win the GOP nomination without a fight. Or at least that seems to be the underlying logic of Giuliani's ultra-cautious noncampaign so far. With the exception of a handful of social issues where an explicit flip-flop would look too craven even by today's standards, Giuliani, a sui generis figure, is improbably presenting himself as the kind of unremarkable Bush conservative whose domestic agenda starts with tax cuts and ends with "comprehensive" immigration reform.
Which is too bad, because an orthodox, Grover Norquist-approved Republican candidate is precisely what the party doesn't need--and precisely what Giuliani wasn't during his two terms as mayor. His genius wasn't for cutting government ("down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub," as Norquist famously put it) but rather for reforming it and making it work for the working and middle-class taxpayers who elected him, rather than elite liberals who had run City Hall into the ground. He offered a municipal version of the reformism that governors like Wisconsin's Tommy Thompson (who passed on his welfare czar to Giuliani) and Michigan's John Engler pursued at the state level in the 1990s--a conservatism targeted explicitly to voters who wanted to keep the welfare state in place but didn't want the Democrats to run it.
This was the tradition that George W. Bush, another successful nineties governor, was supposed to revive in his 2000 campaign, after the Gingrich revolutionaries lost their way. But while Bush's instincts were sound, his insistence on "compassion" as the appropriate attitude toward the poor struck exactly the wrong note. It spoke to upper-middle class feelings of noblesse oblige, not to the aspirations of poor Americans with a drive to succeed. As Mickey Kaus argued when the Bush campaign theme was first unveiled in 1999, the language of compassion has an inegalitarian and even condescending edge. Worse, it effaces the all-important distinction between those who deserve public assistance and those who do not.
Giuliani, by contrast, has always been a "respect" conservative. Delivering safe streets to New Yorkers wasn't an act of magnanimity, but rather an obligation. And, as Giuliani made clear, citizens and public servants were expected to fulfill their obligations as well. Anyone who failed to abide by this basic contract, whether a petty thief or a police commander who failed to meet crime-reduction targets, would be held accountable.
As commonplace as this might sound, it's difficult to overstate how dramatic a break it was with the city's reigning political culture. As mayor, Giuliani stood almost alone against the tendency Fred Siegel dubbed "dependent individualism"--the noxious idea that individuals ought to be freed from obligations to family and community through the largesse of a generous welfare system. "Dependent individualism" fueled the rise of a new class of ethnic shakedown artists. Unlike the old patronage machines, which trafficked in corruption yet delivered tangible benefits and served as engines of political assimilation, self-appointed spokesmen for "the Community" like Al Sharpton demanded deference while offering nothing but bluster and veiled threats. Their chants of "no justice, no peace"--that is, threats of civil violence designed to intimidate authority--brought the Dinkins administration to its knees.
Because Sharpton had no respect for public order, Giuliani had no respect for Sharpton and all those who mimicked Sharpton's contemptuous disregard for authority. Instead, he insisted on subjecting all comers to a single standard, even if it meant taking a political hit. An emblematic moment came in July 1999 when Giuliani, increasingly
It's difficult to imagine a "compassionate conservative" saying anything like this. And such impolitic honesty helps explain why Giuliani spent much of his second term as an unpopular figure--in spite of plunging crime rates and welfare rolls, and New York's economic comeback--before 9/11 transformed him into "America's mayor." Once Giuliani tamed the ungovernable city, he suddenly seemed too tough and hard-edged even for New York.
But after the drift and incompetence of the Bush years, it's easy to see how "respect conservatism" could be presented as a tonic for what ails the country, and as a way for the Giuliani campaign to distinguish its candidate from the incumbent. (One can only imagine how Hizzoner would have reacted to the Abramoff or Enron scandals, or Hurricane Katrina, or the mismanagement of the Iraq war.) A Giuliani domestic agenda that builds on his reputation for tough-minded competence could translate into policies that unite conservatives and independent voters.
On immigration, for instance, a "respect conservatism" might marry Giuliani's avowed support for earned legalization to what Hudson fellow John Fonte has called "civic conservatism," which emphasizes assimilation and civic education and rejects multiculturalism and multilingualism. Instead of Bush-style compassion for new arrivals, civic conservatism would offer them a fair shake--the opportunity to become Americans, but only if they're willing to embrace America's common culture and language.
Moreover, Giuliani could cast any immigration reform as part of a broader effort to reform homeland security, which has become something of a punchline during the Bush years. The national infrastructure--electricity grids, ports, railroads, and highways--presents an inviting target, and the uncertain state of the war on terror makes it likely that many Americans will be looking for a candidate who promises to shore up defenses at home. Giuliani's past makes this a natural campaign issue for him: As a foe of lawbreakers and a tamer of bureaucracies, he's perfectly positioned to make the case for, say, a new push for border security that reduces the threat posed by immigrant gangs, or a reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that a Katrina-style debacle never happens again, or a broader plan to shore up infrastructure by strengthening and decentralizing the networks that sustain industrial civilization.
Meanwhile, because "respect conservatism" is premised on treating all people as equals, Giuliani the candidate would be a natural spokesman for a renewed attack on racial preferences, a still potent issue that President Bush abandoned, finding it ill-suited to his "compassion" agenda. But attacking preferences and offering nothing in their place is a narrow strategy that's unlikely to inspire voters, particularly younger voters deeply invested in the dramatic gains made by women and minorities in recent years. By proposing a grand bargain that replaces preferences with either class-based affirmative action or wage subsidies designed to expand the middle class, Giuliani could take the fight to liberalism: Why do you want to divide the disadvantaged by race, he could ask, when you can include them in a flourishing economy?
Then there's the economy, where Democratic populists have adopted a political rhetoric that poormouths America and paints middle class families as victims. Like President Bush's language of compassion, there's a condescending message behind all this economic fear-mongering, and it offers an opening for a "respect conservative" to acknowledge working-class struggles but emphasize the importance of civic and personal responsibility, both in the boardroom and the bedroom. The Rudy Giuliani who took down Ivan Boesky could be an ideal critic of corporate irresponsibility, for instance, and the mayor who once scolded Margarita Rosario for raising her son to be a criminal might be the right man to take on the relationship between economic insecurity and America's epidemic of fatherlessness.
Such an agenda, not incidentally, would offer a sharp contrast not only with President Bush, but with John McCain, Giuliani's principal rival for the nomination. Where McCain tends to embrace the elite media's pet causes, from campaign finance reform to the patient's bill of rights, a Giuliani "respect conservatism" would be proudly anti-elitist, emphasizing issues that resonate with working and middle class Americans. It would be pitched not to the media, but to the voters who made Rudy mayor--and who might make him president as well.
Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam are writing a book on Sam's Club Republicans.
Co-authored by an Associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly. Now thre's an authority on conservatism.
Don't like that one then check out this one by conservative FrontPage magazine, which says the same thing.
Or check out Michael Reagan, which says the same things.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=26604
Well, I guess you told me, though I don't know anyone who read Tolkien past, gee I dunno, their sophomore year.
So let's make nice. What do you think of `Charlotte's Webb'? Alien Ant Farm--they really rock, don't they?
"Now there's an authority on conservatism."
Also New Republic. And the other one writes for MSN Slate.
Groovy....
Really? You need to get out more.
(y'all s'cuse the ping to a Rudy thread, but I just thought you'd have to see this)
Every article is a rehash of a basic theme, Rudy cleaned up the streets of NYC, cut a few taxes and generally appeared to be somewhat to the right of the typical Marxist city governance. It does not make him a conservative.
There is no such thing as "respect" conservatism, just like we all found out there is no such thing as "compassionate" conservatism. If it needs a modifier, it aint conservatism.
Absolutely 100% ignorant drivel.
Let's try to stay on topic here, Corin.
Rudy supports--or to give him the benefit of the doubt-- does not oppose: "restrictions" on the 2nd Amendment, abortion or amnesty for illegal alien invaders.
So tell me Mr. Stormhands: how can one advance those issues and still remain a conservative?
You can open your bluebook now. Try to avoid invective, please.
You brought up the issue of the screen name.
Have you read the article?
Certain principles and core values are what keeps me a registered Republican despite what I've seen happen to this country over the past 18 years or so (10 of which has been under Republican leadership). I still believe to the death in the Constitution (and the Bill of Rights therein), state's rights, abolishing gun control, abortion reform, the protection of marriage, closed borders, strong but smart national DEFENSE, property rights, personal soverignty, civil liberty, going above and beyond for our military, and most of all small government. And when a candidate, even if he is more likely to win, violates more of those principles than he enforces, I won't vote for him or her. Period. I voted for Bush II twice, and got burned for it because I voted with the party and not principles (even though he seemed like a good candidate in 2000). But I voted for Rick Santorum in 2006, even though he had basically no shot at winning. And I still feel good about that vote because Santorum was a great Senator and a true conservative. Point is, I refuse to vote for Rudy based on one week of PR in New York 6 years ago or because he has a better chance to beat Hitlery. I wouldn't be against adding him as a VP as long as we had a good candidate to lead the ticket.
This thread gives a nice summary for you:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1791356/posts
When writers from those, ahem, publications are telling you someone is "conservative" watch your back.
If you will read both the link to the thread I gave you as well as this page, you will see multiple reasons why I, as a conservative, can support Rudy.
I'm sorry I don't have time to copy and paste them all here for you on the thread.
But the reasons are there.
Thanks for the enlightening reply, it surpasses your usual level of nonsense. Since I lived in NYC during both the Dinkins and Giuliani administrations I think I'll trust my judgement.
Stop crying to JR.
"Have you read the article?"
Yes sir. And if this is NR's official opinion, I'm cancelling my subscription, as I cancelled the Weekly Standard when they came out in favor of amnesty.
"Liberals are like the dog food company president who furiously demands to know why their dog food isn't selling. `We've got the snappiest jingles,' he rails, `the best agronomists, the slickest advertising campaign, the best billboards, the flashiest labels! Why aren't people buying our dogfood?'"
Finally, an employee meekly explains:
`The dogs don't like it.'"
Samizdat Media, p. 91, "Slander", that blonde bombshell
I keep noting that Rudy's supporters can `tap-dance' like Richard Gere on these three issues.
At least we've got a candidate who can afford the shoes.
"drivel"
I see you are discussing the issues with another Giuliani supporter.
They kiss their mothers with those mouths . . . .
You whiners who ping Jim to every post are pathetic.
And if you really think that Rudy supporters are treasonous liberals, then I'll just put you in the category of yet another looney toon. It's a growing club here at FR.
But the gerbils . . . who buys your gerbils? ;^)
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