In a recent interview for the New Yorker, master of public image Rudy Giuliani repeated the claim that he had “turned [New York] around with regard to crime.” While it’s a story Rudy’s supporters believe religiously, Politifact.com notes what New Yorkers already know: the claim is juuuuuust a bit exaggerated:
But violent crime in New York actually began falling three years before Giuliani became mayor in 1994, and property crime started falling four years before.
Under Giuliani, the decline in crime rates sure picked up speed: After falling about 12 percent from 1990 to 1993, violent crime dropped 56 percent over the next eight years. But most big cities, and the nation as a whole, followed a similar pattern: A slow fall beginning around 1990 or 1991, followed by a sharp drop over the next decade.
You mean, Rudy is taking credit for the work other people did in “cleaning up” New York?
No, no, no: it couldn’t be possible!
Despite Giuliani’s frantic efforts to grab credit for it, the revitalization of Times Square came from a massive state-city development effort that began under Governor Mario Cuomo and Mayor Ed Koch, and was completed (again) by the Dinkins administration, which got the Disney corporation to make a financial commitment to developing midtown before Giuliani ever took office. The porn shops and theatres that Giuliani took credit for turning out were also gone from “the Deuce” months before Rudy ever got to City Hall. The last, graffiti-covered subway car was taken off the line in 1989, the final year of the Koch administration, and the city was considered remarkably free of graffiti in general, and its streets markedly cleaner, by the time the Democratic convention came to town in 1992. Even the seventy-five or so known “squeegee” men, as [Wayne] Barrett documents, had been permanently removed from their stations by police before Giuliani actually came to power.
Yeah, but that’s just history. And who needs history when you’ve got the Rudy Giuliani PR machine?
6 Responses to “Shocker: Rudy Exaggerating His Record”
Noah, that’s erie. I think you may in fact be matt. I’m watching you… 
ask and you shall receive…
this is a common smear, that rudy was just there while a national trend occurred. the truth is that new york’s crime rate was alot higher then the national average and dropped far more then the national average, with giuliani being the obvious reason why there was a far more dramatic difference. just more liberal trash trying to convince voters not to believe their own eyes.
matt, promise me that you’ll stick around and talk to us after your boy Rudy looses.
i hope this site is still here after he wins, lot of crow to dish out around here noah. get ready for yet another rudy debate win followed by another winning quarter in the money race.
btw, thompson loses yet another staffer as he stumbles out of the gate LOLOLOL!!! rudy’s only competition is a moromon flip flopper hahahahaha
[...] people start to notice the extent to which Rudy Giuliani has exaggerated his mayoral record, his campaign is scouring the list of his former deputy mayors and commissioners to find someone [...]
Something to say?
Where’s matt today? After I saw this headline I expected to see a comment from him saying the usual:
“More smears from Demosocialist websites like Right’s Field can’t stop the fact that Rudy will be the next president.
You Demosocialists can’t stand the fact that your top tier doesn’t even come close to the executive experience….blah, blah, blah, I love Rudy, but not in a Larry Craig in the bathroom kinda way….blah blah blah. I hate you. -matt”
Left by Noah
September 4, 2007 at 6:12pm