Soccer Dad

Rose colored rudy

I've made no secret of my preference for Rudy Giuliani to be the next president of the United States. It's not because he's the most conservative candidate. It's not because his personal life has been the most exemplary. It's because as mayor of New York he oversaw a dramatic decrease in crime the likes of which have rarely been seen.

When Giuliani took over as mayor, murders in New York had declined from a high in 1990 of 2245 to 1946 in 1993. Over the next eight years murders declined to a low of 633 rising slowly to 714 in 2001 (apparently not including 9/11.) Using the 1946 as a baseline, you could argue that over 8000 survived Giuliani's two terms in office who wouldn't have otherwise.

In a nutshell, Fred Siegel, Giuliani's biographer (and booster) writes:

Dinkins' New York was organized around the unspoken assumption that poverty was a permanent condition, and that the best that could be done was to make it bearable. In Giuliani's words, "We blocked the genius of America for the poorest people in New York." Under Giuliani, the city restored the ideal of upward mobility. Giuliani spoke not only of the rights of the poor but also of their obligations to society. As mayor, he delivered greater safety and a rising standard of living in the city's most blighted areas, from Mott Haven in the South Bronx to Brooklyn's East New York. New York's poorest neighborhoods experienced the sharpest drop in crime and the biggest rises in income and property values. None of this was predestined. No other city has made comparable gains, let alone sustained them. New York's crime rates continue to decline even as they have been rising in other big cities. Turning the tables on those who would substitute intentions for outcomes, writer James Traub has asked of Giuliani's critics, "Isn't preserving people's lives, well-being, and property the most compassionate policy of all?"

When it came to being mayor, Rudolf Giuliani refused to abide the accepted wisdom of the time. He decided to change the way New York was governed and the city benefited greatly.

So too, he approached the presidential primary system. He wasn't going to submit to the tyranny of the established system. He was going to challenge it. Giuliani would sit out most of the early contests and establish his candidacy when the contests started meaning something - allocating significant numbers of delegates.

A few weeks ago strategist Brent Seaborn wrote a memo "Looking Good" in which he argued that the Giuliani campaign was right where it wanted to be. (The memo was also at the campaign website, but that's impossible to navigate.)

Our rivals seemingly have built campaigns based on the old calendars' strategies -- a couple of very early state wins to propel them deeper in to the nomination process. To the contrary, our plan allocates time and resources to the many states which vote a bit later -- on January 29 (Florida) and February 5.

For the record, only 78 delegates will be picked prior to Florida whereas 1,039 delegates will be picked on January 29 and February 5. Additionally, it is important to note that voting HAS ALREADY STARTED in Florida, Missouri, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey and New York - tens of thousands of people will have already cast their ballot by the time you are reading this note. And more February 5th states, including California will begin early and absentee voting soon. All of this points to the folly of over-estimating the impact of the results of Iowa and New Hampshire and the wisdom of our strategy.

Putting a high priority on spending our time and money in a proportional basis in Florida and the large delegate states voting on February 5th is clearly the right thing to do.

Unfortunately those words are out there now for all to see and recall. Looking at the polls or the delegate count, I can't believe that Seaborn expected the current state of the campaign. Though lately Giuliani has started to trend upwards in Florida, his polling have shown a decline over the past two months; and a pretty steep one since the primaries started. While Seaborn talked about how many delegates his candidate could have before Florida, that looks pretty optimistic by current standards.

If Mayor Giuliani wins even a minority share of the 78 delegates from pre Florida states, wins Florida's 57 delegates, wins the 201 available in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware, and wins only a plurality of delegates from large February 5th states like California, Georgia and Illinois, he will have a commanding lead in delegates for the nomination with more than half of the delegates selected.

Currently, Giuliani has all of 2 delegates, trailing both Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter. While his campaign decided to forgo these early contests, I can't believe that they expected to have so few delegates at this point.
Instead of being comfortably in first in Florida, Giuliani is competing for the #2 spot. In an earlier discussion of the campaign's strategy, Seaborn and Michael DuHaime told of the campaign's expectations:

Florida is often referred to as Rudy's "firewall," and the Giuliani campaign clearly sees this as the first state where their man can begin to break away. Even stripped of 50% of its delegates by the RNC along with the other states, Florida still has 57 delegates at stake which, like South Carolina, will be awarded on the basis of winning Congressional districts plus and for winning the statewide vote. But, their thinking goes, with more than a two-to-one advantage in the polls, Giuliani will be able to scoop up the lion's share of the delegates in the Sunshine State.

In a sense, Florida, could still be Giuliani's "firewall." It will not be the boost that shoots him into the delegate stratosphere on Super Tuesday. At best it will be the moment that he breaks his freefall and returns to relevancy. That assumes that it's not too late for comeback.

Andy McCarthy is lamenting the current state of affairs. (via memeorandum)

It's not that New York cares all that much what red-neck evangelists who don't even know which one is the salad fork think. It's that New York cares deeply about what the media think. If they're not leading it, they're following it so as to appear to be leading it. It's a show Rudy could not afford to be out of. No one could.

For all the mocking that the Giuliani campaign is likely to endure, especially if the candidate doesn't win the nomination, little noted is that Giuliani and his people did try to change the system. Maybe it was too optimistic. But he did try to challenge the early importance of the small bellwether states. It clearly didn't work as his campaign anticipated. Maybe it's not too late for Giuliani to pull this out. But it looks like it doesn't pay to be invisible in Iowa and New Hampshire.

rudy giuliani.

Posted by SoccerDad at January 21, 2008 3:34 PM | TrackBack