Obama's Situation -- It's Not FDR in 1933, It's Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 1994

Many people have compared Barack Obama to FDR. Some have compared Obama to Ronald Reagan. A few (you can guess) have compared him to Jimmy Carter. But the truth is that Barack Obama's current leadership inspires recollection of another leader who came into office to find similar circumstances, and who led by trying to make as much change as possible, while also seeming to be everywhere at once.

This leader was Rudy Giuliani. In 1993, New York City was considered by many to have its best days come and go. It was thought to be a City on the decline. Crime was intractable; the schools were an urban nightmare; and the Mayor, David Dinkins, seemed to be out of touch or indifferent to the realities confronting the City.

Ask around: in the early '90s, plenty of smart people thought New York City was gone and never coming back.

Enter Rudy in 1994. Rudy was the perfect war-time Mayor for the City. He knew the City could get back on its feet; it just needed someone willing to push through a new agenda and new reforms. Because the City was in such dire straits, Rudy was able to get his way more often than had the City been working well. Rudy followed the "Broken Windows" theory of crime reduction. He brought in the great police chief Bill Bratton. He instituted a new "welfare to work" program. He showed up everywhere -- if there was a crime, Rudy was on the scene, as if he himself was going to personally arrest (or beat the crap out of) the person responsible for the crime. The bottom line was this: Rudy had ideas. Many of them worked. Some didn't. But he was trying, and compared to the previous guy, that was enough by itself to convince New Yorkers he was the right guy for the job. You got the idea that he really cared about the City and he would do everything he could to make it work.

Now, we all know what happened to Rudy, but this was first-term Mayor Giuliani, not the silly Giuliani of today.

In 2008, America is considered by many to have seen its best days. Many intelligent people believe that the "American Century" is figuratively over, and that we are no longer the country we once were. The economy is in the toilet; respect around the world is low; the problems we face seem insurmountable. And the President, George W. Bush, seems to either not care about the problems we face, or, if he tries a solution, no one takes him seriously.

Enter Barack Obama in 2009. Just like Rudy: he is willing to be everywhere at once, and you get the idea that he is absolutely on top of every issue. He seems to really care about the country and he will push through a new agenda, with new reforms, because the old way: it wasn't working. He's trying, and while all of his ideas may not work, he is able to convince Americans that he cares and he will do everything he can to make this work.

Rudy and Barack. They both came into disastrous situations, followed horrible leaders, and, in Rudy's case, turned things around. Let's hope that Barack has the same results as Rudy - at least, the first-term Rudy.

Comments

[AlexNYC]

Talk about revisionist history. Giuliani did do many positive things for NYC, but it was more thanks to the resurging economy of the mid 1990s that he had the funds to work with. He was very divisive though, and took unfair and even racist stances on hot issues. Even cops called the period "Giuliani time". The city became polarized. I see no comparison of Obama to Giuliani.

[thehonestpolitician]

hahaha!! Rudy? like Barack? c'mon.....­No doubt that Rudy turned around NYC to be safer, but his attitude and as a leader really sucks...I understand your point, but I don't agree with you... He(rudy) is definitely not a person that is 'in touch" with his citizens..­.Ask anyone from NYC -they will tell you all the same...It was great that he turned around the city, but he left a sour taste in the mouth's of the NYC people....­.btw did you write this article after you read Rudy's book? seems like it....

[Jezreel]

Well, while I agree there are a few similarities to the mess President Obama inherited from Pres. Bush the analogy ends there.

Rudy Giuliani was the most divisive, polarizing mayor NY has had in over 50 years. He joined members of the NYPD who threw beer cans and called Dinkins and his staff ni*g*rs during a protest.

He never had a single meeting with members of NY's minority community during his 8 years as mayor. When Giuliani was elected he refused to speak to Governor Pataki for nearly a year because Pataki accepted the endorsement of Rev. Calvin Butts, a prominent black minister . Giulliani even refused to take Pataki's call to congratulate him on winning the election.

Guilliani forced the NYPD to conduct raids on homeless shelters in the middle of the night during Winter to round up homeless people who had been ticketed for sleeping on park benches and urinating in the gutter. The homeless were taken to jail, then to court and when they were released they had lost their shelter beds.

And then there is this: http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2007/08/16/is-rudy-the-king-of-the-jungle/

[Savanna]

Oh please get a grip and really you need to review your history about what was going on in this country when FDR took office. I didn't see people starving to death in New York City when Giulliani took office.
FDR followed one of the worst Presidents that this country has ever had. A man who let his conservative political views over ride the cost of human dignity at the hands of a terrible depression caused by this same group that has let this present inconvenience come to our shore again..Wal­l Street. How soon we forget hard lessons learned. What a shame.

[BBackSoon]

So how much obstruction did Rudy face? Did he have any trouble hiring competent people?

[Thomas McDonald]

Littman is right. Unfortunately I expect most of the commentary here to slime the very mention of Giuliani. He has become a ridiculous figure, but despite all the vitriol against him, most of his tough-love approach to reform during the first NYC term was on the balance good for the city.

[IndieBlue]

I don't doubt Giuliani's sincerity. But let's face it, in addition to being a total media w.h.o.r.e.­, he turned NYC into a digital concentration camp. Let's just hope Obama doesn't initiate a nation arrest quota for police officers, like Giuliani did in NYC.

[Hoopanna]

Giuliani didn't do anything that any other mayor would have done at the time. All this praise for his handling of the City after 9/11 is ridiculous. Non-New Yorkers may not realize this but WE KNOW.

[NYCLatinaLiberal]

Hoopanna,

You are absolutely right! My mother has been saying this to me (and I wholeheartedly agree) for the past I don't know how many years: Rudy Giuliani ONLY DID WHAT HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DO, NOTHING MORE! That Giuliani thought he could translate his duty as the mayor into the reason for being the only viable candidate for President of the United States, UGGHHH!!!!

Please, no Giuliani in 2012, 2016 or 20anything! Let him go back to being a private citizen, forever and ever, amen!

Lastly, I may not agree with Obama on every issue, but I'm 1000% proud to call him My President, and I will continue to give him the benefit of the doubt as he continues to face ALL of the issues plaguing us now.

Thanks for listening (reading).

[teacheng]

Bwahaha! Let's hope it doesn't end for him like it is for Rudy...

[onceler]

Oh dear. Are you serious? This is a joke, right?

[Tanya Cunningham Phelps]

I was thinking the same thing.

[Samalabear]

Oh, but I should add that Guiliani, like Bloomberg, was really only interested in one of NYC's five boroughs, and that was Manhattan. NYC is a very large area folks. Guiliani and Bloomberg made Manhattan into a playground for the rich and to hell with everyone else.

[Samalabear]

I remember Rudy's "welfare to work" program. It took people on welfare who were using the help to get degrees at CUNY -- and doing really well, top-notch GPAs -- and sent them into the street as street cleaners and other jobs that offered no chance of betterment. Many of them ended up having to leave their college programs. Yes, welfare to work was a way to keep poor people poor and guarantee that they would end up on welfare again.

Dinkins was responsible for one of New York City's jewels in Queens, the New York Tennis Center in Flushing. Guiliani was very good at taking credit for many of Dinkins' initiatives and hanging on the successful coattails of others. Other posters have explained Guiliani far better than I have.

I get most of my information from all of the City Council and NYS Assembly hearings that I was transcribing at the time, where I was able to hear the thoughts from the "real" people. Believe me, Guiliani did a lot less than you think.

[crackpot]

What utter nonsense. The thousands of new police officers were funded under Dinkins. Who knows if this was even the reason, since crime rates went down nationally at the same rate they went down in New York. Was that because of the improving economy? Who knows. Rudy Giuliani was a rooster taking credit for the sunrise. Funny how all of a sudden, Giuliani is popping up here and there in the news, somebody's hired a publicist.

[Grunty1]

[Was that because of the improving economy?]

Likely. Crimes rates rise as the economy falls and vice versa.

[NYCLatinaLiberal]

Crackpot,

"... a rooster taking credit for the sunrise." LOVE IT!!!!

[SneathLane]

Mayor Dinkins, Giuliani's predecessor, started the community policing initiatives that Rudy takes credit for. I was here, I remember Dinkins doing it. The tale that Rudy came in and radically changed policing is the product of Giuliani's self-promotion campaigns, not fact.

Giuliani famously spent City money sticking pictures of nice interiors over the windows of abandoned apartment buildings in the Bronx, instead of actually fixing up the buildings. It certainly made them look prettier from the highway. And it was much cheaper than real change.

Giuliani was a bully who trampled on civil rights and freedoms, kept the workings of his administration secret, and claimed credit for the local manifestations of the national drop in crime and the economic boom of the Clinton years. If Obama is like Giuliani, heaven help us all.

[NYCLatinaLiberal]

I second this!

[Palemoon]

"Ask around: in the early '90s, plenty of smart people thought New York City was gone and never coming back."

What's that mean? Where's a city of the size of NYC going to go? It just going to drop off into the ocean and never be seen again, becoming in a few thousand years on a legendary level to that of Atlantis? I scoff at such nonsense. NYC isn't going anywhere, it can't. The only thing that can, is the people. And it was the people, not Ghouliani who fixed things.

And how in the world did Reagan merit a mention? He came into office inheriting a good time charlie situation in which he literally did nothing but screw up a good t hing for the first four years. Then spent the second four trying not to gift GHWB a recession and collapsing economy. Which is exactly what happened and Dems were in turn gifted with a Clinton landslide. Reagan had the easiest job in the world at the time. Economy was sound, hostage situation over, gas disruption over, fixed and gas prices lower than they were during Nixon's 2nd term, not to mention green energy first being taken seriously. Heck, Reagan had no troubles, except those he would create. Unlike most posters on here, and editors it seems, I actually lived through that era and remember it well.

[NYCLatinaLiberal]

Palemoon,

Thank you!! I am so sick of this Reagan was the greatest president crap- he was terrible! He followed in the grand tradition of terrible as did Nixon and now GWB!

I may not agree with everything Obama is doing, but I support him 1000%. America may not yet be smelling like a rose, but it sure doesn't STINK like it did the last eight years!