FLASHREPORT

AMERICA NEEDS AMERICA'S MAYOR

An exclusive column penned for the FlashReport by former Governor Pete Wilson.

[Here at the FlashReport, we strive to bring you thoughtful commentary on politics and policy.  What follows is commentary from former California Governor Pete Wilson, articulating why he believes that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani should be America's next President - Flash]

If you are new to the FlashReport, please check out the main site and the acclaimed FlashReport Weblog on California politics.

After recent travel to London to meet with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his tenth swing through California, Rudy Giuliani is clearly showing the leadership skills of a President.  The reception he has enjoyed here during the campaign has shown that Rudy is not only well-respected and admired around the world, but that he is as popular here in California as any Republican candidate since Ronald Reagan.

And I am one of the many in California and throughout the country who are greatly impressed by him.

I disagree, by the way, with those who bemoan the choice offered by the field of candidates vying for the Republican nomination.  I like and respect the four front-runners and San Diego’s own Duncan Hunter.  They are all articulate and personable.  I am proud and happy to have helped Senator McCain and Congressman Hunter reach the offices they have held.

But the Presidency is an executive job.  Its challenges are quite different than the responsibilities of a legislator.  Having been twice a legislator and twice a chief executive, I am keenly aware of the difference.

The candidate who has the most impressive and relevant experience and record of performance as a public chief executive is clearly Rudy Giuliani.  The city he inherited from his predecessor was not only the largest in the nation but one of the most dysfunctional.  It was dirty, dangerous, and a fiscal disaster.  By the time he left office, New York was once again clean, safe, and restored to good fiscal health.

When he first took office, Rudy took charge of a city crippled by tax-and-spend policies that had created a billion-dollar deficit.  The city was in economic crisis and had lost hundreds of thousands of jobs.  In addition, New York City saw nearly 2,000 people murdered per year and had more than 11,000 major crimes committed every week.

As a former Mayor and Governor myself, I know full well how difficult it is to reduce crime, cut welfare rolls, and revitalize a city.  But that is exactly what Rudy did, contradicting the conventional wisdom of all the nay-sayers who said it could never be done.

Rudy immediately controlled spending and cut wasteful programs.  He cut the size of the city-funded government bureaucracy by nearly 20%—excluding the number of cops on the street and teachers in the classroom.

By the end of Mayor Giuliani’s second term, New York City was known as the safest large city in America, in sharp contrast to its previous reputation as the crime capital of the country.

To achieve such remarkable success, to take on such heavy odds and win against intense opposition by powerful public employee unions and other entrenched political special interests, required a tough and determined leader.  It took a new kind of mayor — one with the brains, the guts, and the tenacity to sustain the effort to win the change that has so dramatically transformed New York City.

And this was not the first time that Rudy Giuliani has demonstrated his strength as a fighter for change.  As the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and Assistant Attorney General of the United States in charge of fighting crime, Giuliani was the crusading prosecutor who took on and won convictions against both the Mafia and major corporate wrong-doers.

The next President of the United States will face what may well prove to be the most severe tests of leadership put to any in our history.  He must confront the danger to the safety and freedom of the American people threatened by a ruthless, virulent Islamo-fascism determined to end our way of life and kill those who reject their fundamentalism.  He will face a Congressional majority so hungry to hold office and score partisan points that they will deny the President and the nation the resources and legal powers required to safeguard the American people at home — and to sustain the pressure diplomatically and militarily to win this long global war against terror.

We must nominate a candidate with the appeal to compete and win throughout the country, as Ronald Reagan did in leading his party and the nation to victory.

Giuliani has been tested as has no other candidate.  As did President Reagan, his clear, firm convictions and proven skills as a leader will put “blue” states in play as no other Republican candidate can, changing the electoral map by bringing back the “Reagan  Democrats.”  Rudy Giuliani is the candidate who can compete and defeat Hillary Clinton in California — and in New York and Florida — because he has so clearly demonstrated he would be the most effective leader in the White House for the people of every state.

His confident message resonates throughout the country.  Conservatives are uniting behind him because they know that to win the White House, we must nominate Rudy Giuliani.

The optimism and steely resolve of Rudy Giuliani has equipped him to step into the Oval Office and lead this country on day one.  America needs America’s Mayor to lead us as America’s President.
_____________________________________________

Pete Wilson served as the thirty-sixth Governor of California (1991–1999), the culmination of more than three decades in the public arena that included eight years as a United States Senator (1983–1991), eleven years as Mayor of San Diego (1971–1983) and five years as a California State Assemblyman (1967–1971).