It would seem a triumph of hope over experience. Nonetheless, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is off to New Hampshire on Thursday, dangling hints of perhaps making another run for the White House.
Sounds implausible, you say? Maybe. But can you blame the guy for at least entertaining the idea?
It must drive Mr. Giuliani mildly nuts to see the crew that has absorbed nearly all the oxygen thus far in the Republican Party’s presidential sweepstakes.
In this bunch we have had: A self-impressed television performer with a talent for slapping his name on buildings. A former Alaska governor (also a television performer) who couldn’t be bothered to complete her term in office. A former House speaker with a marital history at least as eyebrow-raising as Mr. Giuliani’s. An Indiana governor about whom the same can be said. A former Arkansas governor (yet another television performer) who once said he is “pretty sure” there’s duck hunting in heaven. A former Massachusetts governor whose political history may be an albatross. Plus, several people whose names generally draw blank looks, including a businessman who has never held political office but did run a pizza chain.
You just know in your heart that Mr. Giuliani looks at this lineup and tells himself that he is better than any of them — even if he were never, ever to mention 9/11 again. (At a minimum, New Yorker that he is, he could have found a better place for Donald Trump and Sarah Palin to munch on pizza than the ho-hum Times Square parlor where they had a mind meld Tuesday evening.)
As he heads to New Hampshire for meetings and a party fund-raiser, Mr. Giuliani can take some comfort in a CNN poll that puts him ahead, for now, in the Republican footrace. Granted, his support was a mere 16 percent, but he did better than anyone else.
You may now be asking yourself, “Haven’t I seen this movie before?” You have. Thanks largely to name recognition, our former mayor was also dominant in early polls four years ago, and by a considerably wider margin than he is now. But when the chips were down in 2008, his campaign went pffft. In the New Hampshire primary, he finished fourth.
To borrow an observation made in 2007 by my colleague Sam Roberts, City Hall in Lower Manhattan has been “more diving board than springboard” for the politically ambitious. No New York City mayor has risen to higher office since the 1860s.
But should he damn the odds and enter the race, it will be interesting to see which Rudy Giuliani shows up. On core issues, the candidate of 2007 and 2008 turned his back on the mayor of the 1990s.
Mayor Giuliani emphasized immigrants’ contributions to America, and he forbade his police force to poke into anyone’s immigration status. Candidate Giuliani called for stricter border controls, and said illegal immigrants should be issued identity cards.
Mayor Giuliani fully supported abortion rights. Candidate Giuliani said his Supreme Court appointees would be “strict constructionists” — what many take to be code for weakening Roe v. Wade.
Mayor Giuliani supported federal gun-control laws. Candidate Giuliani said the states should be left to deal with firearms regulation. On taxation, Mayor Giuliani called the very idea of a federal flat tax “a disaster.” Candidate Giuliani said it “would make a lot of sense.”
Unfortunately for both the mayor and the candidate, Republican voters weren’t buying either of them. It’s not clear why they would feel any different now.
For full local Times coverage, including the waning of Korean delis, Representative Anthony D. Weiner’s denial that he tweeted lewd photos, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s termination of a state program to check immigration status, see the N.Y./Region section.
Here’s what City Room is reading in other papers and blogs this morning.
A 25-year-old woman told the police that a man tried to rape her on the Upper East Side last week, raising the possibility that the criminal was the same person responsible for sexually assaulting an 85-year-old woman. [Daily News] (Also see The New York Post.)
A gay pride event planned for Marcus Garvey Park in June has drawn the wrath of Harlem religious leaders. [Daily News]
New disclosure reports indicate that about one of every three New Jersey state legislators received a second public paycheck last year. [Star-Ledger]
A group called Save the Dress are collecting donations to buy the white dress Marylin Monroe wore over a 51st Street subway grate in “The Seven Year Itch” at auction so it can return to New York. [DNA Info]
Raymond Clark III, who pleaded guilty to killing Annie Le in a Yale laboratory in 2009, is expected to be sentenced to 44 years in prison on Friday. [Hartford Courant]
Otto Herrarte, who previously claimed that an alter ego named Roberto was responsible for murdering his wife and son, admitted his guilt in a Queens courtroom. [New York Post]
Homeowners in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, are complaining about rowdy students from a nearby yeshiva. [CBS New York]
Chesley B. Sullenberger III, who safely brought a US Airways plane down in the Hudson River in 2009, starts a new job as CBS News aviation expert in June. [New York Post]
LAVA, the Obie Award-winning acrobatic-dance-theater troupe, has survived as an outsider in the dance world by cultivating a loyal following from its headquarters in Park Slope, Brooklyn. [Wall Street Journal]
A street in the Bronx was renamed in memory of Sgt. Jose M. Velez, an Army reservist who died after a bomb exploded near his Humvee in Kirkuk, Iraq, in 2006. [Gowanus Lounge]
A new documentary about the Atlantic Yards development struggle called “The Battle for Brooklyn” will be shown several times this month. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]
Franco Gaskin, the artist who painted 25 murals on corrugated steel security gates in Harlem, would like them to survive as long as possible even though city regulations call for the gates to be replaced. [DNA Info]
The Brooklyn Film Festival starts Friday. [Brooklyn Film Festival]
You can now register for Coney Island’s annual Mermaid Parade, which takes place on June 18. [mcbrooklyn]
