Submitted by Sam Davis, Aug 21, 2007 09:45

Mr. Glaeser conveniently ignores some things in his Gotham boosting piece today. While some of the world's great fortunes are made in cities, some, like those of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who happen to be US number one and two, were made in rather more modest cities.

As for political leadership uniquely New Yorker in nature, of the major party candidates that mantel falls to Giuliani only. Hillary Clinton would be precisely where she is today, Democrat front-runner, no matter where she had managed to find a consistuency willing to elect her senator or governor. She was already a national player, and New York just happened to be a handy place to get elected from, complete with a retiring senator who invited her in. If those conditions had applied in Illinois, she'd be there today.

Mayor Bloomberg is also a quintessential New Yorker, but he also seems tentative about running for president. Maybe he doesn't want to be Ross Perot the Sequel -- Perot's candidacy in 1992 was the single most important reason Bill Clinton moved from Little Rock to Washington. Bloomberg was, after all, endorsed by outgoing Mayor Giuliani. Perhaps hizzoner has enough residual graditude that, if Rudy gets the GOP nod, he will refrain from guaranteeing Chelsea four more years as First Daughter by running an independent campaign.

I like New York, really. Over the course of the last 30 years, I have been there several times and have always enjoyed it. But some New Yorkers really need to get over themselves and realize that not everything starts and ends in the Big Apple. Some things do. But not everything.

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