Obviously the progressive blogosphere and Chris Smith of the New York Magazine feel similarly about Rudy, we're all thankful he's gone. That "scary dream" as he puts it is over and for me personally is a huge relief when I look ahead for the future of our country. A Giuliani Presidency would have been the worst possible outcome of this election. Unfortunately Chris tries to spin it just a little by saying that his candidacy lost steam not because of his atrocious record and many, many deviances, but because people are more focused on domestic issues than the war (a 9/11 thing I'm assuming). Yet somehow due to his exit we won't talk about domestic issues that relate to big cities....cuz Rudy was Mayor of New York...or something like that.
From The New York Magazine:
By no means am I wishing that the carnage in Iraq had continued at the devastating levels of, say, 2006. Nor do I miss the ratcheting up of Homeland Security’s threat levels. But as Wall Street has staggered and we’ve become domestically obsessed again, the shift in anxieties has allowed the candidates to dodge any serious grappling with the long-term consequences of the war, everything from how to end it to what to do about Guantánamo and Pakistan to what incursions on civil liberties are tolerable in the name of self-defense. The United States does have real enemies. Opportunistic and self-aggrandizing his entry into the campaign may have been, but Giuliani’s run was also motivated by a sincere sense of patriotism and pain forged at the World Trade Center, and by a genuine desire to protect his people. His “stay on offense” theory of anti-terrorism was simplistic, but his presence in the race had the valuable effect of pushing the conversation a little bit more toward foreign policy.
The fact that a former resident of Gracie Mansion was a real contender for president was equally important. Eighty percent of the nation’s population now lives in urban areas. Yet the senators and governor still standing only give lip service to the problems in public education, housing, transit, poverty, and crime that touch millions of city lives every day. John Edwards did more to address those issues on the campaign trail than Giuliani did, but having a former mayor of the country’s biggest, most complicated city in the presidential race injected some non-Washington grit into the mix. That’s gone now, and it’s a loss for New York. And it’s just about the only reason to regret that we won’t have Rudy Giuliani to kick around anymore.
Yes, it was (and in my opinion only) John Edwards that addressed urban problems in the best possible manner. Yet by no means did Rudy Giuliani help to inject any kind of debate on how to fix our cities. Remember, Rudy said he fixed New York single-handedly. Urban blight was magically solved by kicking poor people out of Manhattan, those that didn't make $100,000 a year or more (much more) magically disappeared when you would ask Rudy about it.
The only good thing about having him in the race was to kick him around, but the kicking was done for a reason...to kick him out so we wouldn't have to see that obnoxious smug look on his face. Furthermore, New York does not lose (unless you mean the NY GOP's chances of holding on to the Senate this year), New York actually wins because by and large, we were right about him all along and then the states that voted before us caught on and left him standing high and dry.
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