The Giuliani Jitters

If the press release out of the Democratic National Committee is any indication of the knots into which the Democrats would be tied by a presidential campaign by Mayor Giuliani, it is sure going to be an lively couple of years. The DNC's communications director, Karen Finney, a veteran of Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign, greeted the news that Mr. Giuliani had formed a presidential exploratory committee with a press release that must be read to be believed. "Giuliani Was A Registered Democrat For Much Of His Life," the release begins. Only in Washington could the Democratic National Committee issue a press release attacking a politician for having been a Democrat. If having once been a Democrat were a disqualifier in the Republican primaries, a nominating convention would never have been held for a certain former Democrat named Ronald Wilson Reagan.

The next points of attack in the DNC press release? "Giuliani Is Pro-Choice," the Democratic National Committee charges. "Giuliani Doesn't Support A Ban On Partial-Birth Abortions." Mr. Giuliani may want to keep this press release on file for use in a general election campaign, when political committees affiliated with NARAL and other pressure groups will doubtless be spending millions of dollars to scare American women into thinking that a President Giuliani would appoint judges that would banish American women seeking reproductive rights back to back alleys with coat hangers. "Even the Democratic National Committee says I am pro-choice," Mr. Giuliani is going to be able to tell Democrats and independent voters.

The Democratic National Committee goes on to criticize Mr. Giuliani by saying, "Giuliani Identified Himself As Pro-Gay Rights and Supports Civil Unions and Gay Benefits." This surely is a new low. When, during the 2004 presidential campaign, President Bush backed a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, the Democrats criticized him as an intolerant "divider." Now the party of Barney Frank, Gavin Newsom, Christine Quinn, and Thomas Duane is going to attack Mr. Giuliani for having supported gay rights?

Wait — it gets even better. The Democratic National Committee press release goes on to say, "Giuliani Opposed Bush Tax Cut." It's not clear that the tax cut the DNC is talking about here is one of the ones that actually passed, but what's funny here is that Democrats such as Senator Clinton and Senator Schumer have spent the past few years complaining about President Bush's tax cuts. The general idea of all this seems to be that the Democrats are trying to convince the right wing of the Republican Party that Mr. Giuliani isn't a conservative. But Mr. Giuliani may want to keep this in his back pocket for ammunition when, in a general election campaign, his Democratic opponent starts criticizing the Giuliani tax plan as a fiscally irresponsible giveaway to the rich.

And it gets worse. For midway through, the DNC press release switches abruptly from criticizing Mr. Giuliani for being too left-wing to criticizing him for being too right-wing. The release attacks the mayor for having "Announced a Publicly Funded Voucher Plan That Would Have Taken $12 Million Out of New York City Public Schools." Under the plan, according to the DNC, "as many as 3,000 public school students could attend private and parochial schools in the city." But $12 million is 0.1% of the more than $12 billion that New York City spends on government-run schools, and 3,000 children are 0.3% of the more than 1 million children in the government-run city schools. Plenty of Democrats, including Senator Feinstein and the mayor of Washington, D.C., Anthony Williams, supported an even further-reaching voucher program in the District of Columbia.

If the DNC wants to make this presidential election about school vouchers, Mr. Giuliani may want to say, "Bring it on." President Bush ran on a school voucher platform in the 2000 election, and he won, though he negotiated away the vouchers with Senator Kennedy in the effort to win passage of the No Child Left Behind Act. The release, in any event, goes on to criticize Mr. Giuliani for not supporting an increase in the minimum wage in 1999. How this supports Ms. Finney's claim, at the top of the press release, that Mr. Giuliani has "consistently taken positions that are completely opposite to the conservative Republican base" is beyond us.

The final point in the DNC release is a criticism of Mr. Giuliani based on an unconfirmed report that in 1995 he said that part of his welfare strategy was forcing poor New Yorkers to leave the city. Unfortunately for the Democrats, New York's population soared during the Giuliani years, and those that were here were thrilled with his mayoralty. As for New York's welfare system, even the Bloomberg administration complained that it is so uniquely generous, particularly in respect of housing, that, as a Sun dispatch from 2003 put it, "One in six families seeking housing in the city's strained homeless shelter system is a recent arrival from out of town, out of state, or even out of the country, records show." The Democratic Party last won the White House by promising, via William Clinton, to "end welfare as we know it." If that party can be forced by Mr. Giuliani into becoming the last defenders of out-of-town welfare sponges — well, like we said, it's going to be a lively two years ahead.