New York had real problems when Giuliani ran for mayor: deindustrialization, the disappearance of blue collar jobs, white flight, and then the plagues of heroin, guns and AIDS. But it was Giuliani's "insidious political genius," Baker said, to take these real problems and turn them into an argument that "the city was out of control because a black mayor was letting blacks in this town get out of control." That argument, Baker said, got him elected.
A lot of us would be delighted to see the Christian right lose in the Republican primaries. Baker agreed that Giuliani is indeed a real threat to the Christian right. But, he argued, "the problem with Bush is not so much his religious ideology, crazy as that can be. It's the arrogance emanating from this man. It's the cronyism, the incompetence, and the frightening authoritarian impulses. Giuliani embodies all the worst of that, and maybe more."
So other American cities also have rampant crime, corruption and drug problems resulting from white flight and de-industrialization. And yet here in New Orleans, all you hear from the Couhig Conservatives, and the Ed Blakelys, and also from the Yuppie Left is that the real problem is that everyone here is a backwards buffoon.
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