Comments on This is New York

As a post-Giuliani NYC resident whose parents were scared when she moved here because they knew NYC of the 1970s and 1980s, I have a hard time mocking this ad. Of course, it ignores that NYC's economic renaissance was part of the larger Clinton Administration economic success. But for the people who would ever consider voting for Giuliani at all (i.e. people who are not likely to be watched by the government, subjected to police brutality or priced out of living within a reasonable distance of their jobs), this is pretty appealing.

People who bought property on the Upper West Side in the 1970s are now cashing in for having waited for the good times, selling apartments for literally 10-20 times their purchase price. I wish NYC government got some of the capital gains tax from this, because it wouldn't be possible had the UWS not become a place people wanted to live again.

We can't have a president with a lisp. Is it just the compression on that clip or does he really have a lisp?

Only when he dresses up like a woman and sings, Caroliani.

he is insulting you america. are you going to take that? well it is a little hopeless especially if a republican does win

fuck giuliani. he's lucky that NYC got its front teeth knocked out on his watch, it's the only thing that is even giving him a chance for 2008.

thank god his draconian ways did not ruin the big apple, although they sure changed the city.

i was there this past weekend and we were still able to buy real cuban cigars in little italy (and smoke 'em inside), attend a sleazy goth night where there were at least two people in SS uniforms, and engage in inappropriate behavior with hot italian waiters.

if rudy had his way, none of the things that make NYC so sleazy and fun and dirty and gritty would not exist. big money says his next ad focuses on how he saved the world on 9/11.

i'm just glad that century 21 is still there.

What he doesn't mention is how is approval rating as Mayor on 9/10/2001 was in the 30's. The only reason he got to look like a hero on tv was because he put his fucking command center in the basement of the WTC. AFTER it had already been attacked once in '93. Is this REALLY someone we want running this country after 8 years of George W. Musharraf?

And yes, he does have a lisp.

Guiliani and Clinton are both the idols of the MSM.

Rejecting both is a sound choice.

Especially since Guiliani went off the deep end.

Boomer in NYC: I've spent the last five minutes repeating the supposed pronunciation of your (accidental?) misspelling of my name in my head.

care-ole-lee-ah-nee

I can't stop!

"Third or fourth largest"? He can't even look it up?!?

Giuliani DOES deserve some credit for turning NYC around, in his first term. William Bratton was a great police chief, and huge progress was made against the crime and decay that had made the city insufferable. He drove the Mafia out of the concrete and garbage trades, something no one else was able to even attempt.

But Giuliani's character is dominated by fear, control, authoritarianism, and absolute loyalty, and after he drove out Brannigan (for making the cover of Time!), he appointed first the faceless bureaucrat Howard Safir and eventually the hopelessly unqualified scumbag Bernie Kerik to the post, and in his second term all his good work was unraveled.

"Freedom is about authority", he has said. The freedom to shoot first and ask questions later, to use the police to investigate his friends on his own request, the freedom to stop even his own Deputy Mayor on the street and frisk him for no reason other than blackness.

Don't let Giuliani fool you, ladies and gents. He deserves some credit but not nearly as much as he wants.

The mayor before him, David Dinkins, was the one who authorized the ratcheting up of the police force--a major reason for crime reduction.

Also, please remember that the cops in NYC are refusing to endorse Giuliani. They are NOT endorsing him. That means something.

Take it from someone who lives here. And no, I'm not one of these nostalgic douchebags who says remember the good ol' days of seedy Times Square. I am, however, saying no more goddamned republicans!

Thankyouverymuch.

Man, I hope he's the Republican nominee. That would be some great theater.

@10 - no, that was his predecessor.

Oh, bullshit. Dinkins doesn't deserve credit for the crime reduction. Giuliani does -- at the beginning. But the same techniques that worked in the hands of Bratton (not Brannigan, sorry) led to abuses with Safir and especially Kerik. They were GUARANTEED to lead to abuses. Because only Bratton had the balls to stand up to Giuliani -- which is why he was forced out.

Giuliani's handling of the crime problem in NYC is the perfect demonstration of why he must not be allowed to be President. But Dinkins, Jesus. Don't give me any of that Dinkins shit. He was hopeless. Why do you think liberal New York elected Giuliani in the first place?

did they have to make him say so many words with 'S' in them? thhssooo thhsssupid

I heard that Rudy (or his supporters maybe) just starting airing this other ad in Iowa that attacks Hillary Clinton on the drivers license/immigration issue and ties her to Elliot Spitzer. I guess it's Rudy's slightly saner response to Tancredo's immigration/terrorism ad:
Rudy's ad attacking Hillary

All the new yorkers in his add are white and all the couples pictured are hetero. I thought it was a pretty diverse city?

Surely Stranger bloggers wouldn't vote for anyone not endorsed by the police!

I didn't realize he had such a lisp.

Wow, that's a really good ad.

Utter bullshit, but well done.

@14 - nah, I still say it was Dinkins that impacted crime. Guilani just took the credit.

My impression is that crime went down all over America for reasons that are debatable, so NY improving probably had little or nothing to do with Giuliani. The book Freakanomics argues convincingly, I believe, that crime went down all over America not only because of the economy improving, crack becoming less popular, or that more people were being imprisoned, but that this was 15 to 20 years after Roe vs. Wade and one in four pregnancies were terminated. Presumably, many of these unwanted babies would grow up to commit crimes. So it would seem that this had much more to do with the drop in crime rate than Giuliani's "quality of life" policing.

Yes, all of those things matter. But Giuliani made substantive improvements in his first term, that were not remotely matched by other American cities in similar circumstances. "Broken windows" when intelligently applied, as under Bratton, works. Broken windows as applied by creepy unqualified mobbed-up yes-men with authority issues, as under Giuliani after he forced Bratton out, doesn't, not without consequences.

New York right before 9/11 was a deeply divided, hostile city with an asshole in every important city post. That's Giuliani's style -- attacking people who want to moderate his impulses is what he's all about. If you think Bush is bad, wait until you get a SMART one, with extra evil.

And you're saying it doesn't have a..holes now?

Are you sure you're not just used to them?