Rudy dragged down? GOP won’t appreciate man in wig and dress
By Jay Ambrose
Friday, March 9, 2007
news.bostonherald.com
To understand Rudolph Giuliani’s problem, a friend told me while I was visiting Washington recently, all you have to do is look at an editorial cartoon that shows New York’s ex-mayor with three women standing behind him.
“I’d like to introduce my wives,” he’s saying.
Three marriages is hardly the end of his political troubles. As Giuliani woos conservative Republicans in search of his party’s presidential nomination, he will have to deal with his pro-choice position on abortion, his cheerleading for gun control, his amenability to gay marriage and a soft stance on illegal immigration. And don’t forget Marilyn Monroe.
Marilyn Monroe? Well, yes. Giuliani dressed up like Marilyn for a satire put on by journalists in 1997. You can bet that photos and maybe videos of the skit will be all over the Internet at some point - I found a couple of photos in about five minutes - and you can bet it will do him no good. Remember Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis being photographed wearing an Army helmet in 1988 - just a helmet, not a blond wig, lipstick, mascara and a dress - and what that did to his campaign?
But then there’s this other fact, a fact of substance and major importance, a gargantuan fact, a fact that overshadows everything else about this man. It is that Giuliani rescued New York City from the ongoing crisis it had become and would still be today if someone with less energy, drive, focus, practical intelligence and toughness had not become its chief executive.
It’s easy to forget now, but when Giuliani took over, New York was a crime-ridden, porn-ridden, overtaxed, economically damaged, fiscally decrepit welfare haven maybe an inch from decadent downfall. Giuliani got mean on crime, even the small stuff, thereby making much of the big stuff take a powder, as well. He reduced the welfare rolls, shoved the porn far from the intrusiveness it had enjoyed, and worked these and other miracles not by the favorite formula of liberals - spend, spend, spend - but while reducing taxes repeatedly, bringing the budget under control and giving the city’s economy a mighty bounce.
Desperately sick cities do not necessarily ever get well. New York is thriving, and the achievement does not evaporate when you learn that changing demographics had a hand in reducing the city’s extraordinary crime rates. Many other cities with similar demographic assistance made progress that was puny by comparison because they lacked that other essential ingredient: creative, smart, unblinking leadership.
Being mayor of almost any large city is just about the most difficult political job there is. You’re responsible for all sorts of matters immediately affecting people’s lives, and there’s no escaping accountability. I live near Denver, and as its popular mayor learned this year, even one of the most unusual winters in city history doesn’t mean the citizenry will forgive snow-covered streets unvisited by municipal plows. Being mayor of New York is harder than being mayor of most other cities, or governor of most states, for that matter. Giuliani was something of a genius at it. He is a proven administrator, and saying that says a lot about his qualifications for the White House.
Does it follow that he will therefore get over the hump with conservatives? He helps himself considerably, I think, when he pledges that he would nominate strict constructionist judges like John Roberts and Samuel Alito. It helps even more that he turned in so Churchillian a performance on national TV on Sept. 11, 2001, and the days and weeks after that. He would be strong on national defense, and there remain those of us who think no beast in the woods poses anywhere so great a threat to our American way of life as terrorism.
In the end, as I learned years ago covering politics in Albany, N.Y., it takes somebody to beat somebody, and I am not sure either John McCain or Mitt Romney can whip Giuliani in the GOP contest. I may obviously be wrong, and there could be a dark horse whose conservative credentials are more to the liking of primary voters. This much I do know: If Giuliani is to stay ahead in the polls, he had better avoid blond wigs and lipstick.
Talk back at SpeaktoJay@aol.com. |
