Exactly what was the amazing thing that Giuliani did during 9/11? In his position, any mayor (except Ray Nagin, but NOLA is another deck of dysfunctional cards altogether) would have done the same thing.

I would seriously vote for Steve Spurrier as president, though.

Nagin is a good point -- but to challenge you're comment.

Some officials are able to stand up to crisises (is that a word?) and some aren't.

Rudy, if nothing else, was an emotional rallying point for the city in its toughest hour -- and handled the situation about as well as could be expected.

I don't know that that makes him presidential material or not, but I don't think you can take away what he did on 9/11.

Basically, you repair cosmetic details (you really think the mafia was a real problem for the everyday life of New Yorkers? you don't realize the Times Square hookers and porno simply moved a block?) instead of addressing the problem, and most people think you've solved the issues.

Rudy won the psychological battle, even though he whiffed on any real issues.

These were far from cosmetic details. Mayor David Dinkins left NYC in shambles. Rudy Giuliani took a city in urban decay and restored it to its previous luster.

Some of the things Giuliani achieved while being mayor of NY:

-overall crime fell 44%

-murder plummeted 70%

-cleaned up graffiti and so-called "broken window" crime which resulted in increased tourism and more $'s for the city

-cut the welfare roles by half by implementing work-fare
(when he took office one out of 7 New Yorkers were on welfare-- he got more than 690-thousand people back to work)

- instituted $2.5 billion dollars in tax reductions

-turned a $2.3 billion dollar deficit (thanks to former Mayor Dinkins) into a multibillion dollar surplus

-stimulated economic growth (450,000 private sector jobs were created under his leadership)

-cracked down on organized crime-- (and how did it effect NY'ers you ask?) It returned hundreds of millions of dollars back to the city which had otherwise been drained from the city's economy

-his conduct during 9-11 speaks for itself. He was called
"the face of America" during that time. He proved to be a strong leader during a crisis unlike any other in this city. He pulled the city up by its bootstraps, united New Yorkers, kept the city running, took to the airwaves, put together a command center, and was able to get important economic vehicles such as the stock exchange open again in just a matter of days.


Did he make some mistakes? Sure. Was he perfect? No.
Can he get elected? I don't know. He's considered a "moderate" Republican. His views on abortion, gun control, gay rights and immigration could hurt him with right wing conservatives... but then again, it could help him with more moderate Republicans and Independents. His personal life also won't help him either with his much publicized messy divorce to Donna Hanover.

I'm not familiar with the governmental structure of NYC. Was the mayor directly responsible for each of these achievements listed? Were programs of his own initiative responsible for these? Or does NYC also have some sort of board or commissioners, etc.?

Also, where do these statistics come from? Sources are always good. Particularly since statistics can often be scewed and rarely tell the whole story.

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/giu0pro-1
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLI....01/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34527,00.html
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article...lph-W-Giuliani
http://www.globalleadersevents.com/e...h-Giuliani.cfm
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/peop...i/profile.html
http://www.gothamgazette.com/iotw/mob/
http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/rwg/html/bio.html

news release from Mayor's office with stats:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/html/2001a/pr042-01.html