Candidate: Rudy Giuliani

My Primary Source: Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City by Andrew Kirtzman
POV: New Reporter in New York during Giuliani's terms as Mayor (started one year before he took office)
Bias: Surprisingly neutral, you get a feeling the author slightly favors Giuliani, however, there are easily as many negatives as positives given to the ex-Mayor.
Reason for Source: My choices for a book on Giuliani were plentiful. While this book didn't totally serve my purposes (there is nothing on this current election platform) this book gave an excellent character study by a man who was there for all of it. Even with the Mayor as the twin towers fell. It also had excellent reviews.

Quick Note: I will most certainly be referring to this Giuliani's 12 Commitments. This is referring to a speech Giuliani gave that covers the majority of the issues. The speech can be seen here and an overview of the speech can be found here.

Health Care: Source: Giuliani is against government involvement in giving the public free health care. Instead, Giuliani's plan entails giving a $15,000 deduction for family health plans and $7,500 for an individual.

Iraq War: Source: We are by no means done in Iraq yet, according to Giuliani. Handing our enemy's a time table would be nothing short of a huge mistake. In an interview with Bill O'Reilly, Giuliani was asked how he will react to public opinion polls that may or may not agree with this course of action if her were president. He responded by saying, "I will only react to public opinion polls that I think are right." O'Reilly further asked how much longer will the war in Iraq take. His response was, "I don't think its a matter of time I think its a matter of seeing what kind of progress your making. Right now what I'm interested in what General Petraeus says when he comes back [and if he says he needs a little more help] I will give him a little more help, thats what I would do."

Economy & Budget: Source: When Giuliani took office as mayor of New York City the city was faced with a tremendous deficit. Giuliani fixed this by shrinking the size of the city's government and lowering taxes and this had very positive results on the City's economy. Part of his Budget plan if elected is to do the same same to the United States government.

Environment: Source taken from a Q&A session on 6/10/07: To Giuliani, global warming and energy independence can be achieved together, but energy independence is the foremost concern. Research and development needs to be done on things like clean coal, ethanol gas, wind and solar power in order to make them more usable. One technology Giuliani seems to support today to help reduce pollution is safe forms of nuclear power. While Giuliani talks a lot about energy independence and has placed it as point number 6 of his 12 Commitments, preventing Global Warming did not make the list and has not made any promises that I could find.

Globalization: The last of Giuliani's 12 Commitments focuses on looking at Economic Globalization as something we need to go after as a country.

Abortion: Taken from the Fox News debate on 5/3/07. Giuliani believes the decision on abortion should be handled by the States, not the government. However, as stated as commitment number 8 (see link above in Quick Note section) as President he would work to reduce the number of abortions and increase the number of adoptions.

Immigration: Source: Giuliani see illegal immigration as a huge problem, not only for unemployment, but for terrorism in the US. Giuliani's plan to reduce illegal immigration is to put legal citizens into a database and issue tamper proof ID cards. He also believes in making reading, writing, and speaking English mandatory for legal immigrants.

Education: Source: Control of Education should go to the parents, not to the government. This, no doubt, is also a part of his budget plan to shrink the size of government. Giuliani argues that we need to empower parents to send their children to the school they choose is the best for them. Bureaucracy should play no part in it.

Civil Rights: This is easil the hardest part of analyzing Giuliani. While Mayor of New York City, Giuliani did lots to benefit the vast poverty areas. However, during numerous protests of police brutality, Giuliani turned a deaf ear to them. Giuliani was also often accused of being racist, but as Mayor he undeniably did more to benefit Africans Americans of NYC then even his predecessor, the city's first Africans American to hold the position, David Dinkins. In fact, a good part of the hostility could have spawned from the simple fact that Giuliani did defeat Dinkins in 93. Many African American leaders of NYC were not pleased by this (most notably Rev. Al Sharpton), and Giuliani has an infamous reputation to hold a grudge.

Wither or not Giuliani does or does not have a tendency towards racism is uncertain, but the long term effect of his mayorship does not reflect it.

Other Notables: Giuliani is easily one of the most important political figures of the decade. Simply due to his role during the attack on September 11th 2001. He was the voice of reassurance for America for a whole day, while everyone else was left speechless. Also worth noting that Giuliani is no politician, despite his now long career in politics he is first and foremost still a prosecutor.

Personal Opinion (section to extract my emotional commentary out of the above as best as I can): First off, I have to say the book, cited at the beginning of this post, I read for this entry was probably one of the best pieces of non-fiction I have ever read. As I read it, I continuously waited for the author to expose some bias either for or against Giuliani, but it just never came. The last chapter of the book talks about his own experience during the 9/11 as a reported for New York 1 news station tailing Rudy Giuliani throughout the attacks on the World Trade Center Towers. In general, as I said before the book was an excellent character study of Giuliani, and I'm glad I picked it up even though it does not speak about any of today's issues.

Having said all that, Giuliani, himself is a walking double edged sword. As stated previously, he is arguably racist, but potentially the best thing to happen to poor black communities of NYC. He is surprisingly close minded, yet has a small circle of trusted advisers to whom he listens. He is very religious and morale, however this causes him to quickly write off someone who attacks his policies (as though they are seemingly not acting in favor of what is right). He is quick to hold a grudge, and while this closes down communication lines very often it forces others to respect his authority or at least phrase criticism in nothing but the most constructive manner. Strangely he is also, in my opinion, the closest thing we could have to a third term of President Bush. Yet, this is not something I'm worried about because he seems to take some of Bushes most pronounced mannerisms, but seems leave behind the part that makes Bushes intentions so ambiguous. Here is a comparison that should help explain what I mean.

Differences between Bush and Giuliani
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Proven moral rather than claims it
Intelligent (just listen to him talk)
Uncorrupted (Giuliani strong moral sense would not allow corruption)
Doesn't listen to cabinet (as such I sincerely doubt Giuliani would be taking orders from his VP)

Similarities between Bush and Giuliani
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Doesn't care about disapproval
Man of principal
Firm and unwavering (both man stick by their guns when they make a decision, I just have more faith in Giuliani to make the right decision)
Will focus on Iraq and is not willing to pull out troops yet or give a time table



Giuliani is a very interesting character, but this issue of racism frightens me. Analyzing the facts made in Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City (mentioned elsewhere in this post) has given me reason to suspect this suspected racism is more a series of unfortunately events than an exposure of true intentions. Also, as stated elsewhere, there was no evidence lasting evidence left over from in his policies as mayor of NYC to support any accusations of racism. So if nothing else, he does not let it effect his job if at all true. However, there were many cases of police brutality which Giuliani backed the police force (except for one very extreme case) and many accusations of racial profiling raise a red flag that I personally just cannot shake off. Otherwise, Giuliani is an exceptional candidate in my opinion and he's worth watching throughout the election process.