if he runs, i'll be voting for him. http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/rudy_goes_nuclear_opedcolumnists_ryan_sager.htm RUDY GOES NUCLEAR FORMULA FOR '08 SUCCESS -- June 14, 2006 -- A small gathering in Mid town yesterday got a sneak peek at Rudy Giuliani's formula as he gears up for a likely 2008 presidential run. That formula: one-third leadership, one-third technocratic centrist and one-third radical conservative reformer. There's a reason Giuliani outpolls Sen. John McCain regularly when it comes to who conservative Republicans prefer for the presidency - while also maintaining great popularity with centrists - and it was on full display in this Manhattan Institute-hosted talk on energy policy. (For the record, the ex-mayor's firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, does significant work for energy companies.) Giuliani started off by parlaying a joke about the recent rumors of his (apparently non-existent) plan to buy the Chicago Cubs into an anecdote about a Chicago police officer who came to New York after 9/11 and was helping direct traffic - "I still wonder where he was sending those people," the ex-mayor cracked. The centrism came in the policy speech, which found the former mayor in full-on Ross Perot mode with a series of charts and graphs detailing 1) how U.S. energy demand has far outstripped domestic production since 1960 and 2) how countries like France and Belgium are far outstripping the United States in their use of nuclear power. Drawing on his experience managing New York City's power problems, Giuliani spoke of the government red tape that makes it virtually impossible to build power plants, oil refineries and (especially) nuclear-power facilities. Summing up U.S. energy policy since the 1970s, he was blunt: "We haven't done anything." We haven't drilled in Alaska. We haven't built oil refineries. We haven't ordered a nuclear power plant since 1978. We need to start doing these things, he said, to diversify. Energy independence, he said, is simply the "wrong paradigm," despite the idea's popularity in quarters of both the Left and the Right. Instead, in a global economy, "We have to diversify, that's our strength . . . You can be independent by being diversified." And there's room to reach out to the Left on building more nuclear plants now. The technology has grown safer - and nuclear use could reduce emissions that lead to global warming. Giuliani cited support for the idea from the liberal New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore (though, to be fair, Moore has been something of a pariah on the enviro Left since he left that group in 1986). He also plugged clean coal technology and, yes, ethanol, both of which can be harvested at home, as well as natural gas, which is less geopolitically dicey than petroleum. The red meat for conservatives, however, came in the Q&A: An audience member asked Giuliani what he would do on education as president. Without deflecting the loaded premise of the question (no announcement yet, folks), the former mayor launched into an impassioned brief for school choice. "A president has to know the role" of the federal government, he said. "It's more of a leadership role." But as that leader, he would emphasize, "choice and vouchers." As mayor, he said, he thought he could do for the schools what he did for the police department and other city agencies. But he learned he was wrong. The education bureaucracy and the teachers unions were too deeply entrenched. What's needed, he said, "is to go to a choice system and break up the monopoly." Even if they believe it, "most Democrats can't say to you what I just said," he told the crowd. "They're not allowed to." What's more, he said, there's not as much support even among Republicans for school choice as one might think. The GOP's electoral base is largely suburban, and suburban schools are doing just fine. Some suburban parents might even see school vouchers and other choice programs as a threat to their cushy status quo. These suburban Republicans simply aren't affected by what's happening to our urban schools. "They're just not thinking of the good of the country in general," he said - taking a forceful swipe at the selfishness of a group of voters that he may soon be courting. But he's not going to forget about choice, he said, because it's a civil-rights issue. He recalled when a private philanthropy offered low-income kids in New York City a chance at scholarships to private and parochial schools - a sort of private version of the public voucher program he'd like to see. There were 167,000 applications for a relative handful of spots. The rest of the kids were left stranded. "I'll never forget that number," he said. And conservatives are unlikely to forget his political courage.
I can think of worse Republican candidtates. If given the choice between him and Hillary, I might just actually just vote Republican. No I couldn't do that, I'd feel dirty the next morning. I guess I could also just vote for a third party candidate.
School vouchers will turn an already bad public education for poor students and parents into a full blown disaster, as public schools are defunded. The middle class and wealthy will take their vouchers, supplement them with additional funds, and send their kids to halfway decent and good private schools. The poor will be stuck in the now defunded public schools or the hodge podge of new private schools that spring up to take advantage of the voucher system. Of course, the voucher system will not enable these schools to pay enough to attract good teachers and administrators away from the better funded middle class and wealthy schools or provide the more robust support that poor students need to succeed in school. So vouchers will just make a bad problem worse.
agree with you on hillary, particularly needing new blood, but not sure how Rudy fits as damaged goods?
He was the worst mayor NYC had in the past 30 years....until 9-11 happened, and then he became a kind of symbol. He still doesn't know how to run a government. Tie that in with his infidelity issues, and the "other side" could have a field day tying the Republican family values shtick to a philanderer and womanizer like Rudy.
Don't forget Poland, er, Rudy G's tie to Bernard Kerik -- Rudy's right hand man recommended for the post of Homeland Security chief.
All I ever heard was how people in NYC loved him as the mayor and that he did more than any other previous mayor to improve the city especially with respect to the crime problems/image NYC had before he was mayor.
I don't see the need to expend a lot of energy tearing Rudy G down; he's not anti-fehg enough for the Repubs these days, as that seems to be their "money" issue in an era of base consciousness. As for school vouchers, it's white (capital) flight, not sure what the public interest is in these.
Logic and past experience. Aspects of this dynamic already exist in the current systems where schools are funded through property taxes. Public schools serving middle class and wealthy students are able to pay teachers more to work with a less demanding population in a much more pleasant school environment. Of course most people want to work where the pay is higher and the working conditions are better. That's just human nature. So the wealthier systems have the pick of the litter. The harsh reality is that if we are serious about improving education for poor kids, we have to be willing to spend more per pupil in their schools than we do in schools serving more prosperous students. By doing this we create a teacher and administrator pay differential that would attract the best personell to these more difficult positions. Additionally, we could fund the more robust school support (smaller classes, well staffed behavior management systems, etc.) needed to deal with the unique problems (unstable homes, lack of enrichment experiences, etc.) that students from poor familes bring with them into the classroom.
Yeah, I guess if you want to call an egomaniac with a Napoleon complex a great mayor. Yes he did clean up the city, but was an ******* about it and a bit of a racist. Anyway intersting article about Rudy out today -- Bubble Boy Rudy: Can Giuliani Run Beyond His Orb? Former Mayor Explores Presidential Campaign, But It’s a Big Country; Newt’s Big Snub; ‘I’m Going to Give Myself All the Summer and Fall’ http://www.observer.com/20060619/20060619_Jason_Horowitz_pageone_newsstory3.asp
the "worst mayor in 30 years???" do you live in new york? did you live here during the beam, koch and dinkins years? Giuliani was the best mayor since la guardia, and almost siglehandedly turned the city into the clean, low-crime place it is today.
here's an example 10/6/2000 NEW YORK (AP) Mayor Rudolph Giuliani refused to apologize Friday for telling reporters that as many as 2 in 5 black men questioned by police searching for a hypothetical black rape suspect could be arrested for some crime... On Thursday, during a 30-minute talk in which he denied reports that the Police Department's Street Crime Unit has engaged in racial profiling of suspects, Giuliani used the hypothetical example of a rape suspect on the Upper West Side who he described as ''6-foot-2, African-American, roughly 35 years old. 'Giuliani said: ''What is going to happen in order to find that person is a lot of people are going to be approached. You are going to have to search for people, you are going to have to interview people, you are going to have to ask them questions. When you approach some of them to ask questions, you may be frightened about the fact that maybe they have a gun, maybe they don't have a gun. So you frisk them. Sometimes you do find a gun. ''In the course of looking for that one rapist, you may arrest 30, 40 people. You may approach 100 people. But who are you going to be focusing on? You are not going to be focusing on a 70-year-old white male, if in fact the report is that the rapist is a 35-year-old African-American male. And that happens in large percentages, and that is what drives what's going on.'' Giuliani's comments contradict Police Department statistics. In 1998, the Street Crime Unit made 45,000 stop-and-frisk searches although 35,000 of those stops, or about 78 percent, did not result in arrests. About 90 percent of those stopped were blacks and Latinos. http://www.bluecollarpolitics.com/lederman/racist-10-10-00.html
Of course one must consider that the Republican Party doesn't really care if blacks like their candidates. So Rudy probably is on their short-list, if not for Prez then for VP maybe.
Pro choice, pro gay rights and for gun control....AND shows results in 'cleaning up crime.' I wouldn't rule out his appeal. Are you suggesting the Dems might run someone anti-choice, anti-gay and anti-gun control? They came close with John John but it's hardly their demographic.
