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June 14, 2006
Giuliani Throws It Down
John Derbyshire highlights Rudy Giuliani's speech to a gathering hosted by the Manhattan Institute. Ryan Sager writes in the New York Post:
A small gathering in Mid town yesterday got a sneak peek at Rudy Giuliani's formula as he gears up for a likely 2008 presidential run. That formula: one-third leadership, one-third technocratic centrist and one-third radical conservative reformer.
Giuliani was there to speak on energy policy, and that he did--by strongly endorsing a renewed emphasis on nuclear power as part of a "diversified" energy policy. Sager:
Summing up U.S. energy policy since the 1970s, [Giuliani] was blunt: "We haven't done anything." We haven't drilled in Alaska. We haven't built oil refineries. We haven't ordered a nuclear power plant since 1978.We need to start doing these things, he said, to diversify. Energy independence, he said, is simply the "wrong paradigm," despite the idea's popularity in quarters of both the Left and the Right. Instead, in a global economy, "We have to diversify, that's our strength . . . You can be independent by being diversified."
But, as Sager notes, the real red meat for conservatives came in the after-talk questions: Rudy made no attempt to hide his enthusiasm for choice in public schooling:
As mayor, he said, he thought he could do for the schools what he did for the police department and other city agencies. But he learned he was wrong. The education bureaucracy and the teachers unions were too deeply entrenched. What's needed, he said, "is to go to a choice system and break up the monopoly."Even if they believe it, "most Democrats can't say to you what I just said," he told the crowd. "They're not allowed to."
Absolutely spot on. And Giuliani was not fearful of laying on the line for the country club Republicans who've never given a second's worth of thought to conservative political philosophy. Sager, again:
What's more, [Giuliani] said, there's not as much support even among Republicans for school choice as one might think. The GOP's electoral base is largely suburban, and suburban schools are doing just fine. [Ed - Actually suburban schools are not just fine, but we'll leave that aside for now...] Some suburban parents might even see school vouchers and other choice programs as a threat to their cushy status quo. These suburban Republicans simply aren't affected by what's happening to our urban schools."They're just not thinking of the good of the country in general," he said - taking a forceful swipe at the selfishness of a group of voters that he may soon be courting.
But he's not going to forget about choice, he said, because it's a civil-rights issue. He recalled when a private philanthropy offered low-income kids in New York City a chance at scholarships to private and parochial schools - a sort of private version of the public voucher program he'd like to see. There were 167,000 applications for a relative handful of spots. The rest of the kids were left stranded.
"I'll never forget that number," he said.
This is all very interesting. Giuliani is hitting on action issues that make sense, appeal to a wide spectrum (some Greens are beginning to awaken to the environmental benefits of safe nuclear power, and a lot inner city blacks are desperate for improved education) and enhance his reputation as a guy who actually does have a plan.
This speech, combined with John McCain's recent antics, has sharply focused the delineation between Giuliani and McCain. Giuliani is a former mayor of the nation's largest city and his performance on 9/11 continues to resonate. McCain looks like just another hide-bound presidential candidate from an insular, out-of-touch Senate.
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