Giuliani's America

There was no grandstanding from those introducing Rudy Giuliani to the business voters of Nashua. Simply these succinct declarations:
"New Hampshire is the time-tested proving ground where presidential candidates test their messages with experienced voters to prepare for the long national campaign."
And:
"Grassroots civic engagement is taken very seriously in New Hampshire."

Rudy echoed this:
"There is no better place to do it than New Hampshire where it is traditional. Tradition is important in politics. The idea that NH is the first in the national primary is one that I endorsed a long time ago and now I am running for president, I endorse it more!"

This gained a satisfied titter from the business crowd.

Like most speakers, the former NY Mayor opened with some frivolity - an indulgence in jubilation about the recent historic four home runs hit by the New York Yankees baseball team.
"My wife says the Yankees affect my moods," he admitted, perhaps unwisely, since I, for one, immediately started envisaging a president with the international grumpies because his team had lost.
Rudy went on to recall that he had suggested to Hillary Clinton when they were competing for the NY senator spot that, instead of a conventional senatorial campaign debate which bored viewers, there should be a Yankees trivia debate. Hmm.

"Baseball statistics are endlessly fascinating - and so are economic statistics," he said, in a very nice segue into campaign patter and his "four policies for growth".

"These are not ideas, they are things I've done, things I've brought about," he bragged. "Don't just listen to what I say but listen to what I've done."

Lowering tax came first - to allow private enterprise to grow and hence, allow the national economy to compete with the rest of the world.
"The Democrats blur that line," he said.
Rudy said he had done it in NYC and "if you can do it in New York, you can do it in Washington, DC".
He went on to expand on how, by lowering hotel occupancy tax in NYC, tax revenue had increased.
"Democrats don't understand. Liberal columnists don't understand but if you lower tax, you collect more because more people are using and therefore there is more revenue."
Hotels consequently employed more people and the assorted services grew accordingly, he explained, adding that his term as Mayor had been described as "the most conservative term of office in America in the last 50 years".
Jobs had grown by 30 per cent and fiscal deficit had turned to a multi-billion dollar surplus.
"The Democrats are working out which taxes to raise and I'm working out which to lower," he said.
He cited Capital Gains tax, lowered to encourage more people to invest, and Death Tax (known among Democrats as Estate Tax) whihc he said was an unfair tax which hurt families.

Next Giuliani wanted to reduce the size of the government and reduce government spending, as he did in his Mayoral role.
"Spending restraint and economic growth has to come from the Mayor or President. Executives have to understand this. It has to be part of your DNA."

He went on to criticise over-regulation which is "the same as taxes", and to call for sound monetary policy.
"You have to run government in an effective way, like it is a business. You have to pretend that it is a business," he declared.
This meant constant measuring of performance levels for which he recommended to ComStat Program (which turns out to be an accountability measuing program which he used on reforming the police in NY).
"Measure every week. Are you achieving this?" he reiterated.
This struck me as a form of performance-based management so ferocious that it would leave its staff in a constant state of neurotic stress. Clearly Rudy Giuliani is a tough boss.

He spoke also of US Ambassadors and the State Department with its "overriding purpose to expose America to the world and, secondly to expose the rest of the world to America."

He concluded by saying that people had said it was impossible to reduce crime in New York and that he had done it.
"I'm good at doing impossible things. I like to do impossible things," he triumphed.

The breakfast business crowd, the mass of men in dark suits and ties, might have been devoted Republicans - but they also were New Hampshirites. They had questions and their questions were confronting.

Dependence on foreign oil came first.
Rudy did the old political sidestep by saying "let me give you a slightly different perspective" - and then tackled the issue by suggesting that as Chinese and Indian populations emerged from poverty to middle class, the idea was to sell them things - such as potential energy technology, an American "growth industry". Of course, one needed "to put the emphasis on the private sector" with incentives from the Federal Government to develop this. But this was a "tremendous opportuniy" for the USA.
"I'm a glass half full person," he declared.
He was also in favour of more nuclear power for the US. There has not been a new nuclear power station in 30 years "because some special interests are frightened".
"Nobody has died as a result of nuclear power," he said, adding that wind, solar and carbon sequestration were also worthy of attention. And that OPEC was something of an obstacle as "a cartel that fixes prices". "If it operateed in the US, it would be illegal," he snarled.

Asked about Federal Government entitlement and pharmaceutical subsidies, he returned to the free market theme - "competitive and profit-driven"
"If the goverment takes over, the costs go up," he said.
He envisaged tax incentives for people to buy health insurance, to make a market of individual consumers, suggesting a $15,000 deduction would encourage people to choose $9,000 insurance policies and pocket the rest of the money. My eyebrows shot up.
He mentioned health vouchers, too, and different health products.
"Let's create a vast consumer market," he trumpeted.
"We'll have socialised medicine if we do what the Democrats want."

A black Marine Corps veteran asked about what was to be done for disabled and fallen comrades.
Rudy was passionate about the obligation to give them more support, telling of how he would always visit injuired NY police or firemen in hospital "not only out of respect but to ensure they got high quality care". And they did.
"Whenever the Mayor showed up, the head of the hospital turned up," he laughed.
"What I wanted of these men was that they take heroic risks, so what I owed them was to take care of them. We owe this to veterans, too. We must fulfil our basic humanitarian obligation - which will encourage people to serve. We're going to be a volunteer country."

One last question - and it was Iraq.
The former Mayor saw Iraq as part of the War on Terror and was strongly against the Democrat move to put a date on withdrawal of troops, believing that this simply informed the enemy. He saw an almost limitless terrorist threat from within Iraq and from Iran and Syria and Afghanistan. He thought it was time to get Bin Laden, to ensure Iran did not have nuclear power, and to pursue terrorists "on offence, not defence".
He defended the Patriot Act's incursions into privacy and as "uncomfortable but essential" as yet more of the "offensive against terrorism".
"We are not a warlike country. We are at war because they want to come here and kill us," he concluded.
At which one could only hear, loud a clear, a perpetuation of Bush Administration policy. The only difference was that Giuliani had not mentioned God.