Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

I'm going to make a prediction that Giuliani best reflects PNM/BFA connectivity mindset along with willingness to take military action when it's required. Lets see if I'm right.

I must say, from what I've seen of Giuliani on C-SPAN, I never would've guessed that he'd read PNM. His speeches don't seem better than the average House member from Georgia. Perhaps he thinks the voters wouldn't take to the message? Anyway, that he's read it is a big plus to me.

I'm impressed that you're impressed.

I've been watching Rudy on C-SPAN for the last two years as he has given speeches raising money for GOP candidates. He has a wonderful conversational manner of speaking. One feels that he is having a conversation with his audience. Some may not care for it, wanting more fire and rhetoric, but I find it engaging.

I read his autobiography and was impressed with that. He was mentored by some great men and leaders. To his credit Rudy was smart and humble enough to work and learn from them.

We know he's got guts from his days fighting crime as a prosecutor and Mayor. We also know he's smart because he used data and analysis to figure out a way to cut welfare rolls in NYC in a win-win fashion.

He's socially liberal, but not an extremist.

From what I've seen so far "he da man."

Giulliani is an impressive guy. There is his resume of having turned around a corrupt, dysfunctional city that the conventional wisdom held to be ungovernable and turned it into, if not a shining city on a hill, at least a well run city. He did this by introducing ideas that were radical by the standards of New Yorkers e.g. criminals should be prosecuted and sent to jail, the streets should not be owned by thugs and mental patients, and that it was not the duty of the government to drive all business out of the city.

There is also Giulliani's personality, ability to speak well in front of hostile audiences, his ability to not get rolled making deals with dishonest scum. The fact that his style is quite different from George Bush might well give Europeans the cover that they need to try to repair relations with the US. I suspect that a lot of Europeans are realizing that their adolescent BDS behavior has gone a bit too far and that global warming is not the greatest danger that they face and that there are theocrats who pose more of a threat to them than born again Americans. Somebody like Giulliani lets them save face and pretend that it was all Bush's fault.

Before Giulliani dropped out of the Senate race due to prostate cancer, he scared the Democrats enough that they had to try to discredit his accomplishments by branding his administration as racist. Expect that crap to be recycled big time if he gets the nomination.