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Giuliani stays on the fence
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May 19, 2000 | New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani spoke before a crowd of upper East Siders in a nationally televised town hall forum/interview with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Thursday night. But the foremost question on virtually everyone's mind -- Is he in or out of the U.S. Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton -- still isn't answered. Instead, Giuliani again said he was still weighing the various treatment options and contemplating the personal tumult spurred by the revelation of his ongoing extramarital relationship and decision to separate from his wife. The state's Republican convention, at which the party must nominate a Senate candidate, is a mere 11 days away.
"I kind of approached it as if this was a big case, or a budget decision, or, you know, one of the millions of other decisions that I have made," he said of the process of deciding what course of treatment to pursue and whether to continue with his Senate candidacy. "This is a different kind of decision. It involves thinking about your life, mortality, the quality of your life, and the choices are more difficult than I thought they would be." Much of the evening featured Giuliani at his masterful best, appearing calm, highly reasonable, and unlike his prospective Democratic Senate opponent, not reciting lines as though they were from cue cards stored in his head. Instead, he knowingly ticked off statistics on the city's low rates of police shootings and crime, and explained how chopping the welfare rolls was actually very, very helpful to people. (An annotated version of his recitation, however, would have mentioned that his administration has repeatedly and illegally denied welfare benefits to needy people, according to both the state's highest court and the federal government.) When asked by an audience member about his frayed relationship with the city's African-American and Hispanic communities, he talked of the city's growing economy and offered up the following -- seemingly rational -- explanation: "I guess maybe it's the way I approach things. It's different than the way politics used to be practiced," said Giuliani. "I don't do the 'Here's my Hispanic program, here's my Italian-American program, here's my African-American program.'" At this he was interrupted by thunderous applause from the virtually all-white audience at the 92nd Street Y. Mitchell didn't ask, and the mayor obviously didn't mention, how a Daily News investigation revealed that his administration has steered thousands of day care vouchers to a handful of the city's Orthodox Jewish communities, which have been consistently supportive of the mayor, and in some cases bypassed thousands of families on waiting lists. He also didn't mention that perhaps he has such low standing among African-Americans because his administration has virtually no black people in high-ranking positions. At various moments, however, Mitchell questioned him on touchy subjects and the mayor wavered a bit. After months of polls showing public outrage at his handling of the police shooting of an unarmed security guard -- you might recall that Giuliani responded by releasing the man's juvenile arrest record -- he acknowledged that he had "made a mistake." "I should have also conveyed the human feeling that I had of compassion and loss for a mother," said Giuliani. "And I think if I could do it over again, I would try to have balanced it more." And Mitchell asked him about a Giuliani campaign fundraising letter sent out earlier this year accusing Hillary Clinton of being anti-religion. "Do you really believe that this woman, who is a devout Methodist, an observant religious person ... is waging a war 'against America's religious heritage?'" she asked. Giuliani first claimed that passage was taken "out of context" and tried to steer the discussion towards public funding for offensive art. But Mitchell pressed on: "Do you really think she's anti-religious?" "No," he hurriedly acknowledged, "I don't think she is." But the evening's most intriguing exchange may have come with an audience member. Ryan Mora, an earringed suburban high school senior, asked the question that so many have wondered aloud and asked in print during the last week but never articulately put to Giuliani: "We're all wondering how you will continue to uphold yourself as a moral leader given some of the events that have occurred in the past few weeks." There was a smattering of applause from a group of Mora's friends. Giuliani, who had briefly put on his glasses, took them off and replied: "I guess I would just ask people to take a look at me and say I'm a human being." He was interrupted by another round of thunderous applause. "I've never pretended to be a, I'm not a religious leader," added
Giuliani (whose aforementioned fundraising letter also attacked
Clinton for opposing the posting of the Ten Commandments in public
schools). "And I'm not a, I'm a governmental leader and it's my
public record and my public actions and the things that I do as the
mayor that you should mostly be concerned about. And your moral
concerns, and I say this in the most respectful way possible, should
be with your own private life."
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