The death match of Rudy and Hillary

Cluefon
    By Dan Dudis

I don't care much for Rudy Giuliani. In fact, I've been known to put the words Giuliani and fascista together when frantically searching for something coherent to say in Italian class. Giuliani is a megalomaniacal mayor whose dictatorial personality makes him singularly unsuited for elective office in a representative democracy such as ours. That being said, Giuliani is also the mayor who has presided over a spectacular reversal of New York's fortunes. Crime is down, unemployment is down, property values are up, and the city feels much safer and cleaner. New York is once again the place to be—to visit, to go to college, to live. In short, everything's coming up roses.

Having had such success in the city, Giuliani now wants to be a senator. So does Hillary Clinton, LAW '73. Such a race would offer a final showdown between the '60s-style liberalism of the First Lady and the distinctly late '90s vision of smaller government offered by the mayor.

Giuliani hardly deserves all the credit for New York's resurgence—the lion's share goes to the legions of average Americans fueling the speculative bubble we know as Wall Street. The mountain of money made on Wall Street has indeed trickled down—or rather, trickled uptown and to the outer boroughs. And this money is in large part responsible for New York's plummeting crime and unemployment rates. The fact that things have improved more dramatically in New York than in most other large cities is evidence that the booming economy is not the only reason that the city is in such great shape. Giuliani was right to refocus the police department's attention on quality-of-life crimes. Under his leadership, the police, although occasionally overzealous, have made New York one of the safest and most pleasant large cities in which to live. And Giuliani was right to move people aggressively from welfare to work, saving taxpayers a bundle of money in the process.

However much you may dislike the man himself, Giuliani has a vision for the city that makes sense. He wants to return power and freedom to the people. To do so, he is shrinking government—rolling back the nanny state—and increasing law enforcement. And freedom to Giuliani includes two things that most other Republicans would rather see illegal: he has been a consistent defender of a woman's right to choose and gay rights, signing the city's domestic partner benefits law. Giuliani combines social liberalism with fiscal prudence for his distinctly '90s ideology.

Enter into this harmonious demi-utopia a cacophonous, outdated, and outmoded voice from the '60s. It belongs to Hillary Clinton, old liberalism's last hope. Fresh from one Castle Grande, she is rumored to be ready to move into another—the Carlyle Hotel, so that she may establish New York residency.

The First Lady's criminal activities serve to point out her hypocrisy, and they stand in sharp contrast to Giuliani's professional behavior. Ms. Clinton's is a hypocrisy that allows her, the bleeding heart, to make hundreds of thousands of dollars from improper business dealings while living in a poverty-stricken state. Giuliani, on the other hand, left a high-paying job for the relative poverty that comes with being a federal prosecutor. A man of impeccable morals, Giuliani fought white-collar crime while Ms. Clinton dealt in it.

And yet it is Clinton who comes across as the moral crusader. She of failed health care initiatives apparently wants to use this Senate race to revive the flagging fortunes of liberalism. And liberals all over the country are rallying to her cause. They want nothing more than to see Ms. Clinton, the embodiment of failed big government programs, vanquish Giuliani, the man who has been terminating them. She is their last chance, and Giuliani stands in her—and their—way. What a race it would be.

There is that singular moment, after Buffy has staked a vampire and just before she quickly yanks out the avenging stake, when the mortally stricken vampire freezes, face blank and expressionless, before vaporizing into nothingness. I hope that Clinton does run, so that on the evening of Tues., Nov. 7, 2000, we can watch her take to the podium, concede defeat to the Mayor, and vaporize like the most grotesque of vampires that stalk Sunnydale. Impeccable coiffure and glam Vogue cover notwithstanding, Clinton's fangs are among the sharpest: they are the fangs of a dangerous ideology. Vaporize Clinton and you vaporize '60s liberalism, the last threat to the market-driven economy and to Thatcherism and its legacy of smaller government.

Sure, Giuliani may be miscast in his role as Buffy the First Lady Slayer. Christie Whitman, infinitely more suited to governing than the Mayor, might be better able to play the role of the athletic, agressively blonde Buffy. But fate, and inexplicably poor taste, conspire to confine Whitman to New Jersey. It is the Big Apple's blood Clinton aims to suck, and it is Giuliani who will have to suffice as our vampire slayer.

Recent Herald Columns by this Columnist:
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• Saying no to the big, bad Internet, 2/12/99
• Are you a postmodern elitist?, 1/29/99
• Monica, the News Slayer, 1/15/99

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