Giuliani's Pre-9/11 Record Should Erase Rightest Doubts

Hunan Events ^ | 3/16/07 | Deroy Murdock

[areafiftyone]

The same Beltway experts who declared Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) the GOP frontrunner, even as he under-polled fellow presidential contender Rudolph W. Giuliani, now parrot equally dodgy concepts. When Republicans meet “the real Rudy,” they will abandon New York’s former mayor like cattle fleeing a burning barn. Then, the wobbly Washington wisdom continues, Giuliani’s three marriages, and his less-than-solidly right-wing views on gays, guns, and gametes will torpedo his buoyant presidential hopes.

These seers now detect unhappiness with the GOP aspirants. They cite a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in which 26% of Republican primary voters were dissatisfied with Giuliani, McCain, and former Massachusetts governor Willard Mitt Romney, among others. However, 56% called these choices satisfactory. This mirrors the 57%of conservative Republicans who preferred Giuliani, versus 31% for McCain. More broadly, Republicans backed Giuliani 38% to McCain’s 24, former House speaker Newt Gingrich’s 10, Romney’s 8, and 2% each for Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

But what if voters like Giuliani better upon understanding his pre-9-11 performance? Educating Republicans on his complete mayoral record -- and soon -- may be Giuliani’s best bet for extinguishing lingering grumbling about his candidacy.

I recently visited Baltimore, Charlotte, Richmond, Salem, Oregon; Seattle, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, mainly to deliver speeches sponsored by Young America’s Foundation. I conversed with conservative activists, College Republican leaders, university professors, and think-tank scholars, among others.

These Americans vividly remember Giuliani emerging from the ashes of September 11, like a latter-day Churchill rising from the rubble of the London Blitz. However, these involved and informed citizens knew startlingly little about Giuliani’s other mayoral achievements:

• Through robust policing, Giuliani drove overall crime down 56.1%, while chopping homicides 66.6%, from 1,946 in 1993 to 649 in 2001.

• Following national trends, abortions on Giuliani’s watch dropped 16.9%, while taxpayer-funded Medicaid abortions plunged 23%.

• Gotham’s foster-care population fell 38% as Giuliani helped loving families adopt 17,804 boys and girls.

• By fighting fraud and finding work for legitimate beneficiaries, Giuliani cut welfare rolls 58%, starting two years before federal welfare reform. Giuliani renamed welfare offices “Job Centers.”

• Giuliani privatized 23,625 previously confiscated, city-owned dwellings, 78% of supply, benefiting family and individual homeowners and tenants.

• Giuliani dumped Gotham’s 20% set-aside and 10% overbid bonus for minority and female contractors. “The whole idea of quotas to me perpetuates discrimination,” he explained. He initiated this on his 24th day in office, far exceeding any colorblindness legislation Congress even debated during the 12-year “Republican Revolution.”

• Giuliani’s $10 million Charter School Improvement Fund helped 3,286 pupils in 17 new charter schools, up from $0 and zero campuses in 1997. He ended tenure for school principals, so slackers could be sacked. He also stopped social promotion; students needed to complete grade-level work to matriculate.

• Ex-pornography mecca Times Square now welcomes families, tourists, and locals for fully clothed musicals like “The Lion King” and “Mary Poppins.”

Beyond these socially conservative victories, Giuliani governed as a Reaganesque supply-sider:

• Giuliani scrapped three taxes and slashed 20 others, lowering Gotham’s tax burden by 17% and saving individual and business taxpayers $9.8 billion.

• While inflation averaged 3.9%, Giuliani’s average spending grew 2.9% annually. If the departed GOP Congress were that fiscally disciplined, the next federal budget would be $2.275 trillion -- $625 billion cheaper than proposed.

• While hiring 12% more cops and 12.8% more teachers, Giuliani sliced other positions 17.2%. Overall, municipal headcount fell 3.1%.

Rudy got this done thanks largely to a management style that he described Wednesday at a $2 million Manhattan fundraiser: “I’m impatient and single-minded about my goals.”

Giuliani’s legacy has earned the endorsements of such screaming liberals as President Bush’s former solicitor general, Ted Olson, Sen. David Vitter (R.-La.), and Rep. Pete Sessions (R.-Tex.) -- both proud owners of 100% ratings from the National Right to Life Committee.

Before Giuliani’s enemies caricature him as a divorce-driven, abortion-peddling, gun-grabbing transvestite, he should familiarize Republicans with his mayoral accomplishments. From Westwood to Washington’s echo chamber, Rudy Giuliani and his supporters should specify how he rescued America’s largest left-wing city through Reaganite social and economic reforms.

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Mr. Murdock, a New York-based commentator to HUMAN EVENTS, is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

[areafiftyone]

Before Giuliani’s enemies caricature him as a divorce-driven, abortion-peddling, gun-grabbing transvestite,

ROFLMAO!! He sure does read Free Republic! LOL!

[areafiftyone]

((((((RUDY PING))))

[GreyFriar]

Guiliani ping

[FairOpinion]

Conservatives who are attacking Rudy unwittingly are helping the Dems and smoothing the way for a Hillary or Obama presidency, because Rudy is the only one beating the Dems. The Democrats know that and they are using the divide and conquer strategy. Nearly all MSM articles about Rudy start out with almost those caricature pictures.

If the Republicans nominate anyone other than Rudy, we WILL have a Dem president. Heil Fuhrer Hillary. Apparently some conservatives are happy with that.


Giuliani Leads Hillary, Obama in 2008 Race


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1801785/posts

[dirtboy]

Caricature? The truth is hardly a characture. Rudy spoke to NARAL. Twice. He has been divorced. Twice. I don't think he's a transvesite, but it was stupid of him to dress in drag. Twice.

And regarding the gun-grabbing, he did that much more than twice. He pushed for federal gun control laws after the Empire State Building shooting in 1997, took guns away from long-term permit holders and sued gun manufacturers.

The gun-grabbing, pro-abort divorced shoe fits, Deroy. Maybe if you would remove your lips from Rudy's backside for a few seconds, you'd be able to see that.

[CharlesWayneCT]

ROFLMAO!! He sure does read Free Republic! LOL!

But apparently you don't, or don't remember what you read yesterday.

DUPLICATE.

Meet the Real Rudy - Deroy Murdock

PINGED to the RUDY list by areafiftyone at post 12, in case someone notes the title was different.

Why have the same discussion today we had yesterday?

[areafiftyone]

Conservatives who are attacking Rudy unwittingly are helping the Dems and smoothing the way for a Hillary

Of course they are. They are so blinded by their hate that they would actually (out of spite) rather have Hillary as the president just to say "See look what I did just to spite Rudy". Then when she does something they don't like they have no one to blame but themselves when they start howling and crying.

[LtdGovt]

Only Hillary is conservative enough for some people.

[LtdGovt]

Of course, they would blame supporters of Rudy for President Hillary, even though they were the ones who got Hillary elected by staying home.

[areafiftyone]

Is this the same article? I didn't realize that. If it's a duplicate they can delete it.

[areafiftyone]

LOL! They can blame us all they want. I know who I will vote for and it will be whomever wins the Republican nomination.

[tcostell]

At this point in the race there are more important issues than winning. Rudy is a New York City Liberal, and saying that he isn't 12 gazillion times does not change him one bit.

If we were so stupid as to believe things simply because they were being said and re-said to us as often as possible, we'd all be Democrats.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I would have thought the tortured sentence structure, metaphors, and alliteration of the first paragraph would have been a giveaway:

The same Beltway experts who declared Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) the GOP frontrunner, even as he under-polled fellow presidential contender Rudolph W. Giuliani, now parrot equally dodgy concepts. When Republicans meet “the real Rudy,” they will abandon New York’s former mayor like cattle fleeing a burning barn. Then, the wobbly Washington wisdom continues, Giuliani’s three marriages, and his less-than-solidly right-wing views on gays, guns, and gametes will torpedo his buoyant presidential hopes.

I couldn't soon forget "gays, guns, and gametes", much less "wobbly Washington wisdom".

I also remembered laughing at the "less-than-solidly right-wing". It was like looking at a pot of boiling water and describing it as "less-then-completely-frozen".

[CharlesWayneCT]

BTW, I flagged the multiple posts about Giuliani's ties to Venezuela yesterday -- I don't have time to have these talks once per article, much less 4-5. Nothing personal.

[YellowRoseofTx]

If the Republicans nominate anyone other than Rudy, we WILL have a Dem president.

I don't think this is necessarily true

[LtdGovt]

Rudy is a New York City Liberal, and saying that he isn't 12 gazillion times does not change him one bit.

Your impeccable, unassailable argument has changed my mind. If you say that he's a NYC liberal, that must be true. No question about it. I will no longer support Rudy.

[areafiftyone]

I understand completely. Thank you for pointing it out. The problem is the columnists keep posting their column under a different title on different websites. Makes it difficult to do a search.

[LtdGovt]

I don't think this is necessarily true

Not necessarily, of course. Even Duncan Hunter would have a 0.01% chance of winning the general election. However, while Rudy has a good shot at the presidency, if nominated, the others don't.

[massadvj]

Good post ping. At this point, Rudy's biggest asset is his 8 point lead against Hillary. So long as that holds, the nomination will be his for the taking.

If he gets elected with the help of social conservatives, they will have some say in his administration, perhaps stopping a Harriet Miers type nomination. If the social conservatives bail, he can just ignore them like Ahnold has in California and rule as a social liberal, in which case they will be powerless to place any obstacles to the baby killing.

It's up to them, really. The religious right has so marginalized themselves politically at this point they cannot stop a Giuliani nomination or presidency. The only question left is whether they want to have any influence at all.

[FairOpinion]

"I don't think this is necessarily true"

There are certainly no guarantees, but Rudy has the best probably to beat the Dems.

The Clinton machine will roll over any of the other Republican candidates and I don't see a magical Republican "superman" rising.