On Monday I posted on Steven Malanga’s article on Rudy Giuliani’s conservative tenure as mayor of New York in City Journal, the official publication of the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute. Malanga’s article was gushing, which makes sense given the Manhattan Institute’s genetic ties with the Giuliani administration. I took Malanga’s elucidation of Giuliani’s hardline “conservative” policies as actually a signifier of Giuliani’s intrinsic desire to deploy authoritarian powers in order to govern.
Ben Adler of The American Prospect has a rebuttal of Malanga today. Of note, Adler writes:
Though Giuliani has some legitimate achievements to point to, Malanga takes an almost comically one-sided view of his tenure. He neglects to acknowledge that city spending actually rose under Giuliani and only the booming economy kept its tax revenues high enough that the budget stayed out of the red. Malanga sets out at the beginning to debunk the perception that Giuliani’s personal foibles or moderate social views will make him anathema to conservative voters, but he ignores those issues throughout his piece. And, most importantly to the Giuliani mythology, he cuts to September 11th and Giualiani’s ensuing beatification without mentioning that, just before it, his approval ratings were tanking and he had to pull out of a 2000 Senate race he seemed likely to lose to Hillary Clinton. This is the factoid that progressives must remember to whip out any time pundits trumpet Giuliani’s success or popularity as mayor — he was a deeply polarizing figure whose political fortunes were saved by a catastrophe on his watch (and one that was not aided by Giuliani’s curious decision to put the office of emergency management in the World Trade Center after the 1993 bombing.) The false perception that Giuliani was always a widely revered figure in New York is one that drives this New Yorker crazy, and progressives should disabuse everyone of if they don’t want to see a President Giuliani. [emphasis added]
Though I didn’t bring it up in my first post on Malanga, I have often mentioned in the past that Giuliani’s national reputation as a popular, successful mayor stems solely from his performance on September 11, 2001. He was very unpopular leading up to that day and had a list of first amendment violations as long as my arm on his record. He backed out of a senate run because all in all, New Yorkers didn’t like him that much. They still don’t. Adler is right to point out that both liberal and conservative opponents of Rudy Giuliani will have a great deal of fodder the more they delve into his record as mayor and his personal history beforehand.
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