POLITICS

RUDY, RUDY, RUDY:
THE REAL AND THE RATIONAL

edited by Ron Rubin

INTRODUCTION

By saying "yes" to life and "no" to the United States Senate run, Rudy Giuliani has shown that in crises he has become a changed man. When faced with prostate cancer and the breakup of his marriage, Rudy exhibited one of the most prodigious transformations seen in modern American politics.


While critics have derided him as out of control and mean spirited, his warrior's persona has produced stunning results by reversing New York City's social decline. Crime has been cut in half, welfare rolls are back to where they were a generation ago, hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs have been added to the city's economy, taxes have been reduced by a few billion dollars annually, the streets are cleaner, night life has been revived, and the squeegee men are off the streets. So remarkable is the city's turnaround that historians debate whether it's Rudy or Fiorello La Guardia who ranks as the twentieth century's greatest mayor.

BACK JACKET

I believe in a brand of politics ... in which politicians are able to say no to you, and are able to say real things to you .... Because I prefer to have a more honest relationship with you, I hope you appreciate it. If you don't, well, at my age I can't change.

—New York Times, July 24, 1995

If somebody doesn't stand up to the way in which people in the press falsify and say it, even at the risk that all the press will band against you and try to make you look ridiculous, then this isn't America anymore.

—New York Post, March 5, 1998

I have been to Yankee Stadium, I'm sure, more than anybody that's ever run for mayor or will consider running for mayor.

—Daily News, January 26, 1997

I think that politics is politics and it's important .... But it's not the most important thing in life .... This is—politics is life. It isn't. Life is life. And then politics comes somewhere third or fourth or fifth in any person's life who has their priorities straight. And maybe mine weren't completely straight.

—NBC's Meet the Press, May 21, 2000


"Rubin has culled hundreds of memorable statements made by Giuliani throughout his public career, and the cumulative portrait is that of a man by turn reflective and reactive, sympathetic and sarcastic, principled and prickly."
—Jewish Press

Ron Rubin is a professor of political science at Manhattan Community College, City University of New York.


October 2000 • 208 pp • 4 1/2 x 8 • ISBN 0-8419-1410-9
$10.95 (paper)
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