"Strategists for Rudy Giuliani are quietly preparing a significantly *race-based campaign* strategy to strengthen support among socially conservative white voters, in the South as well as in the North.

The former Mayor carries the burden of three marriages and a Brooklyn accent, but he has more race cards to play than any of his opponents, and his success in the fight for the nomination - according to close observers of the campaign -- may depend on how aggressively he plays his hand.

The themes the campaign are lining up for renewed emphasis are those reflecting Giuliani's confrontational stance towards black New Yorkers and their white liberal allies, as well as his record of siding decisively with the police against minorities who launched protests alleging police brutality during the years he was mayor from 1994-2001.

Giuliani's eight years as New York's chief executive exemplified a Northern adaptation of the GOP's politically successful "Southern strategy" - the strategy playing on white resistance to and resentment of federal legislation passed in the 1960s mandating desegregation - resistance that produced a realignment in the South and fractured the Democratic loyalties of white working class voters in the urban North from 1968 to 2004.

"Race is at the heart of Rudy's story," according to Wayne Barrett, one of Giuliani's preeminent biographers. Giuliani ended race and gender preferences in New York's city contracting. He eliminated open admissions at City University and re-instituted testing requirements for the school -- requirements which disadvantaged black and Latino applicants seeking to complete the four-year curriculum. Also angering black leaders, Giuliani instituted tough law and order policies that were consistently cited by his administration as the driving force pushing crime rates down over 60 percent during his tenure as Mayor....". Thomas Edsall, blogging.


I don't think a race based campaign has a chance of succeeding at this time in American Politics. American citizens have Bush exhaustion(76% disapproval rating in polls)I think race baiting will backfire on Guiliani.

RubyPitbull

I can't say I am a huge fan of Giuliani, but Choux are you suggesting that we take Thomas Edsall's blog as gospel? It is just one man's opinion piece, and he is quoting a biographer, not someone who is close to Giuliani and intimately knows what is going on within the heart of the campaign. I personally do not think it was a smart move for Giuliani to hire Stanek as his campaign chair, but I think this kind of speculation is really stretching it. I am very much in doubt Giuliani will be intentionally running a racist campaign. His personal life alone is great fodder for the press and are hurdles he needs to work on overcoming. I can't believe he consciously is planning on adding fuel to the fire. The guy wants to win. He cannot "quietly" prepare to do what Edsall is suggesting. The media are on top of all the candidates. The minute anything comes out of his mouth that could be viewed as slightly racist, it will hit the front pages.

The sad fact is, we are starting to see the mudslinging ooze out of all the cracks in everyone's campaign. I haven't looked too closely at him, but I wonder who Edsall is backing for president to motivate him to write something like this.

tomder55

You gotta remeber that the mods like things asked in question form. That is why this was moved from the Politics Board.

Rudy effectively ran NYC and cleaned it up .It was a sewer of crime before he became mayor . You couldn't walk past a car that did not have a "NO RADIO " sign posted on it by the owner in an attempt to prevent the car from either being broken into or vandalized . Look at pictures of Time Square before and after his terms . You could not walk down the main square of the greatest city in the world without the fear of being mugged. Now it is completely safe and people from all over the world visit and marvel at it .


So of course because he was effective he is racist ....right ?

NeedKarma

"9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11" - that's Rudy's answer to every question. Must keep the fear mongering alive lest they forget

magprob

Yep...He's a bidness as usual kind of guy.

parttime

I'm moving to New york city, it's the only place in this country that's "completely safe"