Posted on 02/12/2007 7:39:47 AM PST by presidio9
Today Peggy Noonan makes a glancing reference to something I've been meaning to write about for a while with respect to Rudy Giuliani:
On 9/10/01 he was a bum, on 9/11 he was a man, and on 9/12 he was a hero. Life can change, shift, upend in an instant.
Noonan is over dramatizing for effect, of course, but a while back I got an email from a self-described liberal in NYC saying much the same thing - namely, that in the mythical afterglow of Rudy's performance on 9/11 people have forgotten that (to paraphrase my emailer's formulation) "on September 10 Rudy couldn't have been elected dog catcher in New York City."
So how much truth is there to the claim that Giuliani was a bum on 9/10? Not much, though I guess that depends on what criteria you use - not to mention taking into account the ideological make up of the registered voters iof both parties in New York City responding to surveys. A general answer is that before 9/11 Rudy was pretty darn well-respected, though not necessarily so well liked.
Six days before September 11, Quinnipiac recorded Rudy's job approval rating among 303 New York City likely Democratic primary voters at 42% approve and 49% disapprove.
Six weeks earlier, on July 25, 2001, Quinnipiac released a more detailed tab of Rudy's approval rating among a larger sample of 913 New York City registered voters:
****** **** Tot Rep Dem Ind Wht Blk Hisp Men Wom Approve 50 86 41 54 63 25 43 56 46 Disapprove 40 12 48 34 28 63 45 37 42
Quinnipiac notes that Rudy's 50-40 job rating had been "unchanged for months." His favorable/unfavorable rating among all voters in the survey, however, was 39% favorable, 36% unfavorable, and 23% mixed opinion.
Even though it's further back and thus a bit less relevant to the discussion, another Quinnipiac survey in June of 2000 provided an even clearer picture of New York City voters' "respect-but-not-love" relationship with Mayor Giuliani:
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's approval rating has bounced back to 49 - 45 percent among New York City voters, his highest level in more than 18 months and a 24-point turnaround since April, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
The Mayor's highest ever approval rating was 74 - 23 percent in a February 11, 1998, poll by the independent Quinnipiac University. It stood at 60 -33 percent November 18, 1998. By April 19, 2000, his approval was a negative 37 - 57 percent, his lowest ever.
New York City voters approve 53 - 41 percent of the Mayor's handling of crime, and give him a negative 34 - 54 percent for his handling of education. He also gets a negative 21 - 68 percent rating for his handling of race relations.
Life in New York City has gotten better since Giuliani became mayor, according to 62 percent of New Yorkers, while 15 percent say it has gotten worse and 19 percent say it has remained the same.
"Now that he's out of the Senate race, is Mayor Giuliani on the rebound? This is the first positive approval rating for him since the Amadou Diallo case in February, 1999," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
"New Yorkers see their Mayor as a strong leader, and a big majority say life has gotten better since he moved into City Hall, but they still don't see him as a kinder, gentler Mayor."
White voters approve of the Mayor 64 - 30 percent, while black voters give the Mayor a negative 13 - 83 percent rating and Hispanic voters give the Mayor a 40 - 49 percent rating.
Looking at Giuliani's personal characteristics, New York City voters say:
* 80 - 17 percent that he can get things done; * 27 - 68 percent that he has a likable personality; * 74 - 23 percent that he has strong leadership qualities; * 48 - 45 percent that he is honest and trustworthy; * 26 - 68 percent that he is sympathetic to the problems of the poor; * 32 - 60 percent that he works well with other political leaders.
Voters give the Mayor a 41 - 38 percent favorability rating, with 20 percent mixed and 1 percent saying they don't know enough to form an opinion. This is up from a negative 35 - 52 percent favorability rating April 19.
On one hand, discussion of what New York City voters thought about Giuliani prior to 9/11 is irrelevant to trying to speculate how folks in Iowa or New Hampshire will view him as a post 9/11 presidential candidate. On the other hand, despite ideological differences there is some universality to human nature, and history does often provide clues to the future.
Furthermore, in some ways this quick look back at Giuliani's past bolsters his over all case to both Republicans and to the country at large which is, in a nutshell: "you don't have to like me or even necessarily agree with me, but I'm a sonofabitch who gets things done." Then again, glancing at Rudy's past does make you question, as a prominent Democratic strategist said to me the other day, whether Giuliani's tough, pugilistic, New Yorker attitude is going to wear well over a long campaign with caucus goers in a place like Iowa.
People forget that New York City had grown pretty tired of him by September of 2001 -- mainly because his most important achievements dated back several years by that point, and they were being overshadowed by other issues at the time.
Oh, I agree. The left felt that he had too many "scandals", mostly involving the police.
Doesn't change the fact that before 9/11 he would not have been re-elected mayor, even if eligible.
Correct. Back then, the biggest critics of Giuliani were Al Sharpton and the NY Times.
I don't think this was the case at all. I seem to remember that his poll numbers were surprisingly low in that hypothetical Senate match-up.
Just keep him in your northeastern inner-city "Peoples Republic" and let him keep doing what he was doing, since the sheeple there don't mind his liberal, jack-booted-thug ideas, policies, and methods.
He has no business being a REPUBLICAN president (or even a dem - which he is more like - president).
Since he left office, Giuliani has leveraged his image as "America's mayor" to his decided financial advantage and in ways that belie his man-of-the-people persona.
He commands $100,000 for a speech, not including expenses, which his star-struck clients are happily willing to pay. In one speech last year at Oklahoma State University, Giuliani requested and received travel on a private Gulfstream jet that cost the school $47,000 to operate. His visit essentially wiped out the student speakers annual fund.
Like other high-priced speakers in the private sector, Giuliani routinely travels in style. Besides the Gulfstream, which is a standard perk on the big-time speakers' circuit, his contract with Oklahoma State called for up to five hotel rooms for his entourage, including his own two-bedroom suite with a preferred balcony view and king-size bed, in the event of an overnight stay. But he did not stay overnight.
The contract also required a sedan and an SUV, restrictions on news coverage and control over whom Giuliani would meet, how he would be photographed and what questions he might be asked.
In another speech, at a charity fundraiser in South Carolina in February 2005, Giuliani also commanded a $100,000 fee, though he donated $20,000 of it to the event. After he was criticized by a local official, he ultimately decided to donate an additional $60,000.
Giuliani reportedly received more than $200,000 for another speech, given to benefit an Australian research hospital in 2003. When it was disclosed two years later that the hospital netted only $15,000, the revelation sparked widespread criticism in Australia. Months later, after the New York Observer picked up the story, Giuliani threw his own fundraiser for the hospital.
I agree that could be a win-win.
Personally, since he's not going back to Mayor, I'd rather see him as a Senator from New York where he would be a marked improvement over anybody who is likely to be elected here.
I don't know about being a bum but the only reason he became mayor was because of Dinkins' high cholesterol.
Giuliani and Clinton were at a 41-43% dead heat before Giuliani announced that he had cancer. Interestingly, if Pataki had entered the race instead, he did better than Giuliani beating Clinton 46-41. Had Clinton lost that race, I believe that would have been the end of her.
BTW, this poll was at the height of his marital troubles. Even without 9/11, Giuliani's personal image has rebounded significantly since then.
(Mussolini made the trains run on time when no one else could)
I missed the part where somebody put a gun to OSU's head and demanded that they bring in Giuliani as a speaker. My college never had anybody of his stature, and I had a SCOTUS Justice in my class. Giuliani is not cashing in on 9/11. The speeches he gives are based on his book "Leadership," which has almost nothing to do with 9/11.
"My favorite tidbit is that he charged $100k for giving a tsunami aid speech in South Carolina in February - forking over $20k of his fee as a chartiable contribution -- when other celebrities like Clinton, George Bush I and George Clooney donated their time. The author writes it is indicative of his lack of understanding of sensitive political issues":
The former Mayor’s decision to profit from a fund-raiser for tsunami victims in a politically sensitive state is only the most vivid example of how small a role his political ambitions have apparently played in his personal calculations. At times, he has shown a willingness to trade in political capital for, well, real capital. He has given his speeches to a wide range of organizations around the world with little apparent attention to American politics. And his firm hasn’t been shy about taking on politically unpopular clients, including the owner of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Westchester and the pharmaceutical industry.
....“I assume that the people who gave to the charity assumed their money was going to tsunami relief, not Giuliani relief,” said Howard Wolfson, the spokesman for the New York State Democratic Party. “It raises the same old questions about Mr. Giuliani’s judgment, that somehow the same standards and rules that apply to others don’t apply to him. “It’s wrong to take money for charity appearances. Mr. Giuliani ought to know that,” said Mr. Wolfson, who is also an advisor to Senator Hillary Clinton.
The media and the liberals hated him. Specifically the Clintons. I believe they went out of their way to disgrace him prior to 9/11. I remember him before 9/11 not only as the man who cleaned up NYC but also the man who told Arrafat to stay away and ordered the towing of cars owned by UN diplomats/deadbeats. I also remembered him standing up against those who called the Virgin Mary covered in dung, art. The media and the liberals were doing the same job to Rumsfeld prior to 9/11 and had to put their smear on hold for a few years.
I guess he wouldn't play well in Washington, then.
Also, someone should be pointing out what is happening in upstate New York now and what happened in New Orleans after Katrina. No calls for FEMA or government aid. Why? Not because one is white and the other black. But one does not depend on entitlements and the other does.
There is no way he'd have lost that. The NYers were moaning about the fact that there was no one to replace him, really, except Bloomberg, who no one really wanted.
There sure will.
All the SOB has done since 9/11 is PROFIT from the death of 3,000 people.
The guy's a mutt.
(No offense meant to mutts)
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