Giuliani The Details Man

But on the Republican side, under the radar, suddenly Rudy Giuliani emerges as the frontrunner. No media orgasm, not huge publicity campaign. How does it work?

Never mind. The question is: What kind of a man is Giuliani. David Frum, taking Fred Siegel’s excellent book Prince of the City, tells us all about him.

Giuliani is an intense student of government - not politics, although he cares about that too, but government: the mechanics, the institutions. Unlike George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, he is very much a details man.

And probably that is what you need to be to achieve what Giuliani achieved in New York City. Because when you realize that New York City is the very citadel of the progressive class and the central slum of their clients, well let Frum say it.

Giuliani’s accomplishments as mayor almost dazzle the eye:

Crime reduced, work restored, poverty down, taxes cut, revenues increased, private home ownership up, civic spaces restored ....

and these were not coincidences, the happy result of being in the right place at the right time. Every achievement can be directly traced to a policy adopted or imposed by Giuliani, almost invariably over the vociferous objection of the city’s most powerful interest groups and influential media.

Yes. Let’s repeat that. Every policy change was achieved over the dead body of liberal special interests and the MSM.

And when you think of the vast range and extent of the welfare state, its hundreds and thousands of nice little programs and sinecures that run on and on, unreformed, forever, the task of reforming it is daunting.

Unless you are a tough customer and a detail man, a man like Rudolph Giuliani.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.