The Pitch, Part IV

From today’s New York Sun, authored by another name right-wingers will trust (R. Emmett Tyrell, Jr.):

…one knows a politician by the company he keeps, and Mr. Giuliani has around him the financial people who created the libertarian-conservative Manhattan Institute. …

One also knows a political leader by the action he takes. As mayor, Mr. Giuliani took on the nanny state that city government had become, reducing the dependency that had one in seven New Yorkers living off government support. As for New York's huge welfare rolls, he more than halved them and had more than 100,000 welfare recipients finding work annually by 1999. He cleaned up the crime-ridden streets, cutting crime by 64% and murder by 67%. By cutting spending and taxes, he turned an economic basket case into an economic marvel. In eight years he reduced or extinguished 23 taxes. Every year he was in office, New York City's economy grew faster than the nation's.

Then came September 11 and he displayed to the nation the traits he had so successfully displayed in reviving his city. He was decisive, efficient, prudent, and — something only those at his side in Gracie Mansion already knew — brave. … He had already demonstrated his awareness of the danger and nihilism of terrorists. In 1995 he expelled Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat from commemorations of the United Nations' 50th anniversary sponsored by the city, saying, "When we're having a party and a celebration, I would rather not have someone who has been implicated in the murders of Americans there." Mr. Giuliani's knowledge of international terrorism has steadily grown to the point that he is now acknowledged as one of the world's foremost authorities on terror. That alone in these times should commend him to the majority of the American electorate.

… Mr. Giuliani will be a formidable candidate for the presidency [; s]urely conservatives of all stripes will recognize this. What they need to hear next is where the mayor stands on conservative social issues.

(Note the inclusion of foreign policy credentials, something that Mitt Romney, for instance, sorely lacks.) Indeed it would be a shame if, as Tyrell hints, social issues were the only thing keeping the Republicans from nominating their obvious best shot at retaining the White House next year.