Free Republic

City Journal's Steve Malanga offers the most detailed and succinct history yet on how public sector unions grew from being toothless employee associations to having a virtually lock on all of the key power levers in California and how they've used that power to enrich themselves while all but ruining a once-goldern state. As Malanga explains, what has already happened in California is well underway across the rest of the nation and in Washington, D.C.: "The story starts half a century ago, when California public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to elect their own bosses—that is,

New York Times story about the budget deal that California legislators struck last week to close the state’s monstrous deficit noted that, “California is an example of what you will see across the country” as state budgets come under pressure from the declining economy. Hardly. While many states are grappling with budget problems, none are nearly as large as California’s relative to its size--$41 billion in a state of 37 million, or $1,108 per resident. Even New York, the next most fiscally pressed state, clocks in with a mere $13 billion for 19 million residents, or $685 per capita. There’s...

Some social conservatives even dismiss his achievement in reviving New York before 9/11. An August story on the Web site Right Wing News, for instance, claims that Mr. Giuliani governed Gotham from "left of center." Similarly, conservatives have been feeding the press a misleading collection of quotations by and about Mr. Giuliani, on tax policy and school choice issues, assembled to make him look like a liberal. Mr. Giuliani may be the most conservative candidate on a wide range of issues. Far from being a liberal, he ran New York with a conservative's priorities. Government exists above all to keep...

Yes, Rudy Giuliani Is a Conservative Steven Malanga And an electable one, at that. Not since Teddy Roosevelt took on Tammany Hall a century ago has a New York politician closely linked to urban reform looked like presidential timber. But today ex–New York mayor Rudy Giuliani sits at or near the top of virtually every poll of potential 2008 presidential candidates. Already, Giuliani’s popularity has set off a “stop Rudy” movement among cultural conservatives, who object to his three marriages and his support for abortion rights, gay unions, and curbs on gun ownership. Some social conservatives even dismiss his achievement...

Not since Teddy Roosevelt took on Tammany Hall a century ago has a New York politician closely linked to urban reform looked like presidential timber. But today ex–New York mayor Rudy Giuliani sits at or near the top of virtually every poll of potential 2008 presidential candidates. Already, Giuliani’s popularity has set off a “stop Rudy” movement among cultural conservatives, who object to his three marriages and his support for abortion rights, gay unions, and curbs on gun ownership. Some social conservatives even dismiss his achievement in reviving New York before 9/11. An August story on the website Right Wing...

Not since Teddy Roosevelt took on Tammany Hall a century ago has a New York politician closely linked to urban reform looked like presidential timber. But today ex–New York mayor Rudy Giuliani sits at or near the top of virtually every poll of potential 2008 presidential candidates. Already, Giuliani’s popularity has set off a “stop Rudy” movement among cultural conservatives, who object to his three marriages and his support for abortion rights, gay unions, and curbs on gun ownership. Some social conservatives even dismiss his achievement in reviving New York before 9/11. An August story on the website Right Wing...

Personally, I prefer Tancredo although I admire "America's Mayor," and this article sheds some light on Rudy's little known conservative and courageous accomplishments.

Not since Teddy Roosevelt took on Tammany Hall a century ago has a New York politician closely linked to urban reform looked like presidential timber. But today ex–New York mayor Rudy Giuliani sits at or near the top of virtually every poll of potential 2008 presidential candidates. Already, Giuliani’s popularity has set off a “stop Rudy” movement among cultural conservatives, who object to his three marriages and his support for abortion rights, gay unions, and curbs on gun ownership. Some social conservatives even dismiss his achievement in reviving New York before 9/11. An August story on the website Right Wing...

Black Republicans are making a run for a number of big elections this year. In Maryland, Michael Steele wants retiring Democrat Paul Sarbanes' Senate seat. Keith Butler is also running for Senate, from Michigan. Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers star, wants to be governor of the Keystone State. Randy Daniels would like to be governor of New York. And gunning for governor in a key presidential electoral state there is the great black hope for the Republican Party, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. The "great black hope" is probably the last phrase Blackwell would use to describe himself...