On Rudy

After the last Republican debate, the consensus of the punditry, and even a few of those 'man on the street' views, was that Rudy is doing pretty good and people like him, but...does he have to talk about New York City so damn often. I get the sentiment. New Yorkers are, for the most part, annoying. We think that we are smarter, cooler, richer, better looking, and all-round more important than everybody else. Also, we tend to cling to the delusion that as goes NYC so goes the nation (a belief we developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries when it was actually true). But let's get a couple things straight. First the obvious, Rudy's record is 100% New York City, so if he's talking about qualifications, he's gonna talk NYC. And he should, because his record here was sensational. As Steve Malanga wrote recently (perhaps several months too early) in City Journal, it is easy to forget just how much of an astounding turnaround Rudy pulled off here in the Big Apple. Finally, let me tell you that Rudy is not displaying that NYC arrogance that I characterize above. When Rudy was mayor, he was despised by those people. The elites who run all of New York's snootier institutions (principally the media), and who are quick to want to tell the poor slobs in fly-over country how they ought to live, despised Rudy. They hated him. And all the whacko losers, who we now call "the netroots", hated him too. I lived right on Sixth Avenue and every year my balcony was a front row seat for the Halloween parade, arguably NYC's silver medal freak show extravagaza (gold to Gay Pride of course). Before George W. Bush came along, you would have thought the sole purpose of this event was to demonize Rudy.

The crazies and snooties hated Rudy because he was Outer Borough, he was row house, he was old-school, hard work, immigrant New York. He wasn't avant-garde Soho or U Club New York.
So I ask you my fellow countrymen, do not mistake Rudy's excessive talk of New York City as yet another manifestation of our oftentimes arrogance. Take it as pride in a truly remarkable record of a regular guy made good.