That disease can redeem a lot of flaws in my mind, but not all...
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.
Rudy's not a bum, just a Rockefeller Republican scumbag, both as a person and a politician.
Agreed. SOME people hated Giuliani, of course, but even before 9/11 he was famous all over as the guy who helped clean up New York.
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Before 9/11 there were "students" and other losers doing goose-stepping Nazi rallies denouncing Rudy. I distinctly remember a black "protest" like this.
Shows you how grateful they were for saving so many black lives in the areas he cleaned up and policed, maybe if he was a real Nazi-racist he would have ignored your neighborhoods and stepped down policing and let the criminals run the projects the way Dinkins did.
At the time Rudy took over, you didn't even want to go to the city, the thugs thought when Dinkins became mayor that it was time to take over things, and they did. They said the city was "ungovernable" it was, if you were a passive, timid, liberal moron.
Not if you're a gun-grabbing, pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro big govt, pro-amnesty, Clinton-apologist, liberal. In those cases, he would be a dream come true!
I seriously doubt that you even knew who Rudy Giuliani WAS on 9/10/01
You are wrong about that. Rudy and I share a very serious mental disorder, we are both die hard Yankee fans.
That disease can redeem a lot of flaws in my mind, but not all...
I don't think you quite understnad what I was said. The difference between Katrina and what is happening in upstate New York - or in the midwest or in Colorado - is that New Orleans represented over 60 years of a entitlement society. They believed they had no personal responsibility to take care of themselves. The other areas do not have that mentality.
Very good!
And to you this looks good for Republicans? I'd say those 2.5 m Hispanics are going to throw the city to the Democrat in any race. This Hispanic thing is now the wild card all over the state. Combine their overwhelmingly Democrat vote with the African-American vote at 98% Democrat, The Jewish vote at 90% Democrat (most of the time), and the steady 52% of women who'll vote for Democrat and you come up with a state that would not vote for Teddy Rooselvelt or Abraham Lincoln, even if they had Jesus Christ as a running mate.
Let us bid a fond ¡Adios Amigos! to the Republican Party in New York State. In the 50s and 60s the European ethnic balance occasionally gave the Republicans a Chance. Now? Fuggedaboutit. ¡Viva América!
Interesting information. I've long speculated that Giuliani has never had any intention of running for the White House -- because being a "prospective candidate" has been far more lucrative for him than a "former candidate" or "actual candidate" would be.
I don't deny that, but I also think that Giuliani could well take NY State in a Presidential election. He was, after all, elected mayor of NYC, and much of the rest of the state votes Republican. Hillary Clinton's relationship with Arafat's wife could end up turning off a lot of Jews when given the choice of the pro-Israel Giuliani. He would get the Italian and Irish votes, and it would be up to the Democrats to get the Blacks and Hispanics to the polls. It's not out of the question. And the Democrats can not win without NY. That being said, I will definitely NOT vote for Giuliani in the primary.
That's asinine. George Bush has been president ever since Giuliani was a "prospective candidate." This is the first opportunity that he has had to declare, and he has done so.
Polititians grabbing photo-ops are not..
Giuliani did his job.. you know.. that he was paid handsomely for..
Being better than Dinkins at it?.. well anybody would have been..
It wasn't just the MSM that was responsible for this. There were several high-profile incidents involving NYPD officers shooting innocent civilians that didn't help Giuliani's image at that time, too.
This isn't the first time a northern region of this country has been "overlooked" in the face of a crisis like this. One of the worst natural calamities in my lifetime was a major ice storm across upstate New York and eastern Canada back in 1998. Most people probably don't even remember it because it didn't get a lot of media attention, but it was far worse than a hurricane in many respects.
For one thing, it covered a much larger region than the path of a hurricane. And the impact of this storm was devastating (see photo below) . . . with huge high-tension towers crumpled to the ground under the weight of the ice, leaving thousands of people all over New York State and eastern Canada without heat, electricity, etc. for 4-6 weeks after the storm -- in the dead of winter, with temperatures reaching as low as -30 on the coldest days.
On 9/10 rudy was a great mayor.
Actually, there was one. Abner Louima, who reached inside his jacket when armed police officers in uniform told him to put his hands up. There was also the bizarre case of NYPD officers raping inmate Abner Louima with a plunger. The media and Al Sharpton took the opportunity to blame both incidents on Giuliani. The media did NOT, howver take the opportunity to blame the even more egregious shooting of Sean Bell on Michael Bloomberg. Nope, no double standard there.
I didn't notice any "Rudy fatigue" prior to 9/11. I'm sure he could have been re-elected.
Many liberals in NYC -- and there are a lot of them -- considered Giuliani slightly to the right of Hitler prior to 9/11. I remember Susan Sarandon in front of the Brooklyn Museum denouncing Giuliani after he threatened to pull the museum's funding when they displayed a painting of the Virgin Mary decorated with pornographic cutouts of vaginas and anuses. (This was the famous "elephant dung" painting, but the media somehow never mentioned the porno collage element.) Still, I think a lot of people, even here, considered Giuliani a hero for calling the museum to task.
I would add the Anthony Baez and Patrick Dorismond cases to that list, too.
The Diallo case was the only one that had any traction, because the other men died while they were physically fighting with police officers.
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