Posted on 04/03/2007 6:00:24 AM PDT by areafiftyone
Rudy Giuliani’s expected re-election November 4 is looking more like a coronation. A mid-October poll by NY1 and The New York Observer shows New York’s Republican mayor shellacking his Democratic rival, Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messinger, by 24 points. Rudy leads Ruth 56 percent to 32. Some Giuliani aides even speak of a victory exceeding 60 percent.
How has a New York City Republican come within days of doing to a long-time liberal Democrat what Ronald Reagan did to Walter Mondale?
First, Giuliani clearly controls a city that literally had grown ungovernable. Under Giuliani’s predecessor, the warm but inept David Dinkins, the Big Apple had become Beirut on the Hudson. Rival ethnic groups fought openly, often fatally, against a backdrop of urban decay and collapsing infrastructure. As Gotham burned, Mayor Dinkins repeatedly was photographed relaxing on local tennis courts.
Even Giuliani’s critics now concede that he is a detail-oriented, hands-on, full-time mayor. There’s now no doubt who’s boss around here.
Second, credit Giuliani’s world famous War on Crime. With the help of police commissioners William Bratton and Howard Safir, he has fought petty offenses to ensnare big-time bad guys who often jump subway turnstiles and urinate on skyscrapers. The results are familiar, yet eye-popping: since 1993, homicide has plunged 61 percent. Armed robberies have tumbled 48. Rapes are off 13. Assaults have dropped 26. Robberies have fallen 48. With overall crime down 42 percent, New York is now America’s 156th most dangerous city.
Giuliani’s progress in the social sphere, however, has been a more obscure story. Despite conservative caricatures of Giuliani as a pro-abortion, gay rights crusader, he has done plenty that should impress social conservatives.
“What we’re trying to do is establish a sense of reciprocity,” Giuliani told guests of the Manhattan Institute last year. “With rights come responsibilities. With benefits come duties…the second part of that we’ve lost in the last 20 years.”
In order to pare welfare rolls that had swelled to 1,112,495 as Dinkins departed, Giuliani hired 250 people to judge whether recipients truly were eligible for aid. He also required beneficiaries to be finger-imaged electronically. Thousands disappeared rather than get caught double and even triple-dipping from welfare agencies in New Jersey and Connecticut. Other aid recipients already were working, some full-time for the NYPD, fire department and even the Office of the Mayor. “No one had bothered to check before,” Giuliani explained.
Those with children under three needn’t work. But many on welfare now are in the Work Experience Program, America’s largest workfare initiative. At any one time, some 40,000 participants spend up to 35 hours each week cleaning streets and parks and, along with juvenile offenders, removing graffiti. This spring alone, 43,310 WEP workers asked to have their aid checks stopped since they had permanent private-sector employment. Interestingly enough, 51 percent of those who earn below $20,000 annually support Giuliani, the NY1/Observer poll found.
As of last August, there were 256,677 fewer people on welfare than when Giuliani arrived. Naturally, overall economic growth has helped. New York’s economy has accelerated thanks to the bull market and Giuliani’s moderate tax cutting and deregulation.
Giuliani also has fought to allow predominantly black, private van operators to ferry passengers around New York’s outer boroughs. As Nigerian immigrant Lateef Ajala told the Wall Street Journal, these vans employ people and take others to their jobs. “Work is the medicine for poverty,” he observed.
These efforts parallel Giuliani’s support for minority students who are trying to escape New York’s schools. While education remains the city’s greatest area for improvement, reading and math scores have edged ahead under the leadership of no-nonsense schools chancellor Rudy Crew. Still, Giuliani promoted a program in which private donors offered $7 million to help needy students attend private schools. 22,700 applications poured in for 1,300 three-year scholarships.
All this has led Democratic congressmen Floyd Flake and Edolphus Towns to endorse the Mayor, as have at least 38 other prominent black figures, according to The Village Voice.
Though hard to measure, Giuliani also has helped civility return to New York. In small ways, a decrease in crime-related fear and an upward spiral of civic self-confidence have brought out the good in people.
“Are New Yorkers Turning Nice?” The Manhattan Spirit, a community newspaper, asked last August 8. An article described how “the spirit of friendship is springing up across the West Side” as apartment dwellers throw parties to meet their fellow tenants who, for years, have been the closest of strangers.
In well-lit, clean-scrubbed Times Square, tourists now pose for charcoal-sketch artists where prostitutes and gang-bangers once pranced. It’s no longer unusual for bank customers to hold front doors open for each other.
The other evening, I forgot my beret on the seat beside me as I dashed off an express train at Grand Central Station. “Your hat!” a couple yelled as I stood obliviously a few feet away. They tossed it on the platform as the subway’s doors slammed shut. I retrieved it, waved gratefully and saw a half-dozen passengers return my smile.
These good feelings date back at least a year. On October 26, 1996, throngs of New Yorkers packed Times Square to cheer the Yankees’ World Series victory. They laughed, screamed and hugged. Sedans full of fans cruised by with pennants waving from their windows. The panes of now-prosperous shops remained unshattered. Cops smiled at citizens, happy that not even one patrol car was overturned or ignited. Just above this scene stood a sign promoting Jackie Mason’s one-man-show. In what could be the motto of the new New York, the marquis said in flashing lights: “Love thy neighbor.”
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This article originally appeared in the Washington Times on October 28th, 1997. It is reprinted here with the author’s permission.
((((Archive Rudy Article PING))))))
whats with the date of this article?
Four Score and ten years ago.............
Old article posted on Race42008 today.
I see you liberal Republicans are still bound and determined to forsake conservatism and push Rudy Giuliani ahead of conservative candidates. You’re so desperate that you even splash a nine year old article written by that chief Giuliani butt-kisser, Deroy Murdock.
Things havne’t changed since you Rudyloons started this crusade in earnest last August 2006! LOL You STILL have no respect for conservatism and remain committed to seeing a big govt, gun grabbing abortionist become the GOP nominee. What a pathetic waste.
What people outside New York City have to understand is that he took over a dysfunctional dump that looked like Mexico City or Nairobi and turned it into a Singapore, or a Fujimori-era Peru. But it's important to remember that Singapore and Peru are only appealing because they are clean, safe, orderly places where people like to visit and do business -- especially if the person who is visiting and/or doing business is perfectly comfortable with the notion that order is maintained through the strong-arm tactics of a totalitarian government. They are NOT American places in any sense of the word -- and neither, quite frankly, is New York.
Tell me about that, if you please? Strongarm tactics? I have not heard of such things, and I’m interested, esp. since I think he will be the nominee.
I see you liberal Republicans are still bound and determined to forsake conservatism and push Rudy Giuliani ahead of conservative candidates
areafiftyone, You are behind in you dues to the Liberal Republican RINO Club. Please send my $20.00 and I’ll see you are reinstated. And while I’ve got you, it’s your turn to bring donuts to the meeting.
No you can ask Duncan to do that! ;-) (its a joke)
You can do your own research on this for now on just about any thread on this site related to Giuliani's presidential aspirations. I'll be back later this evening with specific links or examples for you.
President Bush is too soft and compassionate
Giuliana is to strong armed and totaliterian
Are we needing a middle of the roader then?
Who do you support for our next president?
Newthink: not as easy as it looks.
Not me, I like RESULTS. Reagan was able to get results and so will Rudy.
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