The main reason was that he refused to continue with the "business as usual" attitude that had led NYC down a toilet for the better part of forty years. He shook things up, he changed things, and there were a lot of people invested in the status quo who found that very frightening.
People ask me why I support Rudy, and I'll tell you, the difference in NYC now as opposed to how it was when I was here before is like night and day. Rudy did that, and it's an accomplishment that I deeply respect.
I have seen that difference too. What a difference the train ride from NYC to Westchester is now. Almost a pretty ride in some places. Less graffiti and abandoned cars.
HOWEVER, IMO he can’t clean up the country. What is wrong with this country are the liberal views he defends and cherishes.
I'm not going to bash Giuliani. There's things about the man I respect, and reasons I don't think he's right to be the leader of this country.
The United States is not NYC. Other than once in a while on a dumpster, I don't see graffiti - anywhere. Where I live, you just kind of assume that most everybody owns a gun, and most everybody hunts, and most everybody is a God-fearing Christian who doesn't engage in immoral sexual behavior (and if they do, it's with their own wife, and they don't tell anybody about it, and it's OK).
Where I live, we don't need someone with a heavy hand utilizing the power of the federal government to clean things up.
We want the borders protected, because the crime rate in my county has gone through the roof since the illegals moved in.
We want the federal government to do something about the IRS because we're all scared to death of going to prison because we forgot to carry the one (fairtax.org bumperstickers are nearly as commonplace as the Browning logo on the back of cars and trucks).
We want to protect the meaning of words ... like marriage ... even if we can't keep the homosexuals on the streets and MTV from kissing each other in front of our children. It doesn't mean we hate queers, we just don't want them spoiling everything.
We want the "doctors" to stop killing babies because we think it's murder, not a choice, and - as often as not - we know someone who had an abortion and never forgave herself for it.
We want to win in Iraq, and fight Islamofascists wherever we need to.
We want to take pride in our nation, and we really don't want to hear from the Democrats who equate our country with failure or class warfare, because where I live, we've all had tough times but we figure out a way to work through it.
And we want somebody who is going to take meaningful steps toward shrinking the size and scope of the federal government (or as we call it, the Yankee Government), because where I live, we believe that the federal government has grown ridiculously out of control and outside its Constitutional boundaries.
And we don't see a New York Mayor - no matter how good he was after 9/11 - or a New England Governor, or a nut-job from Arizona as being the guys who're going to do it.
We want a candidate who shares our values, and the top three from the GOP don't cut it.
But where I live, we're accustomed to being disappointed with our elected officials.