USA Today reports the following about former Virginia Governor James Gilmore, one of the more obscure candidates for President:

Gilmore, who was governor of Virginia when the Pentagon was attacked on 9/11, appeared to take a swipe at Giuliani when he vowed that he would never send first responders into danger without proper equipment. "When I'm president, the radios are going to work," he said.

I assume nobody asked how he was going to be able to do that as President. Perhaps he will create a new cabinet Department of Appliances?

Earlier this month, an article in the New York Observer included the following:

When he ran for Mayor, political opponents called on Mr. Giuliani to account for the firm’s client list—which included the government of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega—and commitment to diversity and public service. As David Margolick wrote in The New York Times: “As far as White & Case’s public image is concerned, Mr. Giuliani has produced far more hail than rain.”

The latest argument being made by Rudy’s supporters to conservatives is essentially “the enemy of your enemy is your friend”.

This argument made be Steve Malanga, George Will & John Podhoretz is that Giuliani in office overcame the vehement opposition of liberal special interests and the left-wing media to cut crime, slash taxes, fire City workers and banish squeegee men.

They then say that the fact that these bad guys (meaning liberals) were all against Rudy means he’s really “one of us” (meaning conservatives) despite abortion, gay rights, guns, Mario Cuomo, etc.

The March revision of Current Employment Survey data from the New York State Department of Labor is out, and official 2006 annual average data is out with it, so I have decided to see how different parts of New York State have fared (see spreadsheet). In the decade from 1996 to 2006, New York City gained 286,800 private sector jobs (10.2%), leaving it about 142,000 below the city’s employment peak in 1969, a pre-fiscal crisis year when the city’s poverty rate was actually below the national average. It is far above the rest of the nation, and the rest of the state, today. The rest of the state, which was close to all time employment highs in the mid-to-late 1990s, gained 300,400 jobs (8.1%) during the period. But those gains were not shared evenly. The Downstate Suburbs and Hudson Valley, feeding off Manhattan’s growth but without the local taxes associated with New York City’s poor, gained 262,000 private jobs (13.8%), the fastest growth anywhere in the state, while metro areas elsewhere upstate gained only 20,400 private jobs (1.5%). Removing job gains the Health Care and Social Assistance sectors, many of those metro areas lost private jobs. Even so, virtually every part of the state had a local government boom — except New York City. Back in your father’s economic decline, New York City has forced to swallow a substantial decline in public services and soaring taxes due to the need for “personal responsibility” when its private economy declined. Many of those public services are still more limited, and taxes higher, than in 1969. But this is not your father’s economic decline, and this time “society is to blame.”

The special election to find a replacement for Congresswoman Yvette Clarke in the NYC council, took place three weeks ago (2-20-07), with candidate Mathieu Eugene the indisputable winner. Now we are being told by the winner, that he will not submit documentation proving that he resided in the district by the day of the election, as the law states/requires, as interpreted by the Attorney General. But is Cuomo correct in this interpretation? We are in virgin territory folks.

In my 34 years in NYC politics, I have never seen or heard of the council requiring someone to prove their residency before swearing them into office. I am being told that it has never happened before in the four hundred and fifty-four year history of the council. So why do this now? Well, I will get to that in a minute.

All this press coverage almost a year before the first Primary over a year and a half before Election Day reminds me of nothing so much as something else happening right now – spring training in baseball.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, speaking after a fundraiser in New York last night, told reporters it was “early in the campaign” when asked about former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s surging poll numbers.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” The Associated Press quoted the Arizona senator as saying. “We are doing very well in the early primary states. This campaign … is still in spring training.

In 1973, when I migrated to New York City from the island of Trinidad, I was lucky enough to have caught the tail end of the civil-rights activism era. Ostensibly, back then, political activism/community involvement in most black areas of the city was something of a norm; ordinary people were much more civic-minded than they are today; parents were much more involved in their PTAs, school boards and police precinct councils. Back then, block associations and tenant associations flourished; there were vibrant members perpetually trying to hold things together within their communities/organizations. That was a time when people routinely attended community planning board meetings and also worked in local political campaigns for no money.

George Will has a column defending John McCain, Mitt Romney & Rudy Giuliani against those who think they are not conservative enough.

His defense of Rudy includes the following –

The suggestion that Sept. 11 required city tax increases triggered from Giuliani four adjectives: "dumb, stupid, idiotic and moronic."

Now that may be proof of conservatism but not that either Will or Rudy were correct. The attacks of Sept. 11 did damage the New York economy and that along with Rudy’s excessive spending that began when he ran for re-election required Mayor Bloomberg to raise taxes because of Sept. 11. Bloomberg’s actions, unpopular at the time, resulted in the City’s bouncing back with a stronger economy than under Rudy’s watch.