Is Rudy ‘Nuts’? updated
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Many New York political pros believe Rudy Giuliani—former mayor, hero
of 9/11, and now presidential candidate—is, quite literally, nuts. The
author asks whether Giuliani’s lunatic behavior could be the ultimate campaign
asset. – Michael Wolff
We know Rudy’s a crossdresser, but is he wacko too?
Newfield, who died in 2004, desperately, and to little avail, tried in his
short, apoplectic book to demonstrate the existence of a real Rudy as opposed
to the post-9/11 heroic Rudy. “Are you crazy? He’s just insane,”
Newfield kept yelling at me over lunch one day, when I was trying to come
up with a strategic explanation for Rudy’s wild swings of temperament, judgment,
and sense of proportion. (Similarly, Newfield quotes the New York politician
Basil Paterson as saying Giuliani has “a devil in him,” and Giuliani’s
former school chancellor Rudy Crew as diagnosing a “very, very powerful
pathology,” and former New York congressman Rev. Floyd Flake as seeing
in Rudy, simply, a deep “mean streak.”)I argued, having voted for Rudy once, that, in certain contexts, nuttiness—for
instance, his need for virtually round-the-clock media attention and affirmation—can
be a positive governing approach, as well as an effective public-relations
strategy. Rudy’s manic domination of the city’s airwaves and consciousness
during New York’s most disturbing crime years, when many people felt the city
was beyond anybody’s control, was palliative (David Dinkins, his more modest
predecessor, always seemed overwhelmed). And, of course, his hysteric nature
was part of what enabled him to appear so reassuring on 9/11: When everyone
is crazy, he, being actually crazy, is calm. When everyone is stunned, he’s
expressive. (He may be the best off-the-cuff speaker in politics—conversational,
witty, personal.) … ..
Rudy better buckle up, because it could turn out to be a very rough primary ride.
UPDATE: Rudy plummets in latest poll: from 40 to 27%. OUCH.
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