Dear massadvj,
"As I said. Imagine someone turning Washington DC into a financial stable, relatively peaceful urban oasis."
Actually, that happened to a significant degree under former Mayor Anthony Williams. The murder rate declined from around 500 per year to about 170 last year. The city went from the very edge of bankruptcy to solvency. Before Mr. Williams became mayor, Congress had actually taken back some aspects of home rule because of the misrule of Washington's mayors and other officeholders.
But Mr. Williams did a lot to bring the city back. In fact, under Mr. Williams, the city was able to afford to bribe Major League Baseball to finally give 'em a team.
Mayor Williams did some smart stuff to get the middle class to move back in, especially by enticing buyers with lowered real estate property taxes. The Department of Motor Vehicles, although still moderately dysfunctional, actually works on some days, and with somewhat less corruption. The city pays its bills on time. The snow gets plowed, the roads get repaired at least occasionally.
Truly, Mr. Williams performed some miracles during his tenure in office.
However, like Mr. Giuliani, he had his failures, as well. Although the charter schools show some promise, and our recent Catholic archbishop, Cardinal McCarrick, was able to stitch together a conservative/liberal coalition to permit a limited experiment in private school vouchers, nonetheless, Washington's public schools are still an obscenely expensive morass of failure. Taxes are still too high. Not all the corruption and cronyism of pre-Williams days was eliminated. There are still more bureaucrats than needed, and too many still have the attitude of, "I'm with the government, I don't have to give a damn."
But altogether, as I'd give Mr. Giuliani a B or B+ for his efforts, I'd likely give Mr. Williams a B+ or even maybe an A-.
Nevertheless, I'd never vote for Mr. Williams for president, even if he decided it was politically convenient to slap an "R" on his back.
sitetest
I don't blame you one bit for your principled stand, and wish you the best of luck as you decide who to support. If your candidate wins the primary, I'll be happy to support him. I am committed to Rudy and make no apologies for compromising my principles a bit to back the only guy other than McCain who the polls indicate can win in November. Like most Republicans, I smell Hillary's blood in the water, and I am not going to abandon the guy who put it there.