Britain and America

Has Brownback opened the door to running with Giuliani?

Last week the Republican hopefuls held their first debate.   John Mcintyre on the RealClearPolitics blog has posted a good summary.  Perhaps one of the most interesting moments came when the leading social conservative in the field - Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas - was asked if he could support a GOP candidate who was not pro-life.  This was his reply:

"I could because I believe in the Ronald Reagan principle that somebody that's with you 80% of the time is not your enemy; that's your friend and that's our ally. And this is a big coalition party, and it's a coalition party that's governed for a number of years in this country. And it governs because it governs with a coalition of economic and social conservatives and people that want to be strong for the United States."

John Mcintyre's conclusion is the same as ours: "Sounds to me like Senator Brownback is open to a Giuliani/Brownback ticket."  This ticket designed to unite the Republican party and reduce the risk of a third party, Christian right candidate in the event of a Giuliani nomination was first raised on this blog in January.

A Giuliani-Brownback dream ticket?

Tim Montgomerie writes:

On the face of it Rudolph William Giuliani’s record as Mayor of New York should endear him to the conservative base of the Republican party.

A recent, magisterial essay for The American Spectator by Deroy Murdoch noted Giuliani’s conservative record on tax, fiscal responsibility, privatisation, crime and colour blindness.

The overall crime rate fell by 57% during Giuliani’s time as Mayor.  It fell furthest in the city’s poorest districts.  The murder rate fell by nearly two-thirds.  All this happened because of a major increase in police officers and because the extra officers operated New York’s now famous zero tolerance policing policy.

City-wide unemployment fell from over 10% to just 6.3% at the time of 9/11.  Much of this reflected the increasing room to breathe that the Mayor gave to New York’s private sector.  He cut taxes, privatised two-thirds of the state-owned housing stock and brought city spending growth below the inflation rate.

He cut overall public sector employment by nearly 20% and still increased the number of classroom teachers and beat police officers.  Giuliani was cutting welfare numbers before Clinton began the federal welfare reform process.  The New York welfare caseload fell by 58% - in large part because of a war on entitlement fraud, fought by fingerprinting claimants.

Noting that 70% of long-term prisoners and 75% of adolescents charged with murder grew up without a father, Giuliani increased New York’s adoption rate by more than 1,000%.  “If you wanted a social programme that would really save these kids, a lot better than the City of New York, the United States Congress, the Social Welfare Agency, and Administration for Children’s Services, I guess the social program would be called fatherhood,” Giuliani concluded.

Giuliani also ended New York’s 20% set-asides for minority and female-owned businesses.  With guarantees of 20% of the city’s contracts these businesses charged an average 10% premium above the cost of white, male-run businesses.