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May 4, 2007
Can I stop worrying and learn to love Rudy?
Fellow born-and-bred New Yorker Matt Yglesias is rather surprised that Rudy Giuliani may actually win the Republican nomination. Sure, he was an unpopular mess on Sept. 10, 2001, but that time has clearly passed, no matter how much we are reminded about what people thought of him back then.
People across the political system recognize that he's a jerk and a hothead and I think a lot of voters may recognize that style doesn't work with world leaders as well as it does with, for example, the Taxi and Limousine Commission. Nevertheless, he could win the nomination, which gives him a decent chance at becoming President. I tend to think of a Republican victory as a minor national catastrophe, but I've survived Reagan and two Bushes and while things may have been quite a bit better these past eight years if Al Gore won, the bottom hasn't fallen out from the economy or society. Columnists, activists and Democrats whined and moaned about how New York had become a police state beholden to out-of-town corporate interests, but I lived through it (admittedly as a white kid in Manhattan) and things got generally better.
On the minus side, a lot of people felt harassed by the police. On the plus side, those people also feel a lot less harassed by criminals. That's not ideal, but there was active management and pressure on all the agencies to be proactive and professional, unlike the federal government. Issues like housing prices and homelessness didn't get the attention they deserved, but this is only so much one mayor can do. He cut crime, increased employment, attracted next-generation business, merged EMS and FDNY to increase performance at both and improved the subway.
In the end, Giuliani's weaknesses as mayor are multiplied when the issues are less day-to-day and more ideological. His court nominees are big risks, as is his foreign policy. His advisers will be much more partisan than they were at City Hall.
Then again, I don't think the other Republican nominees are much better.
Posted by rj3 at May 4, 2007 2:09 PM
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