Friday, October 03, 2008
Save The Rudy Rule!
Say NO! To Mike's Machine!
Mike, call Rudy about this.0 comments
Rudy Giuliani also asked to rescind Term Limit laws in New York City, just before those laws forced him out.
New York City told Rudy, "Get lost, putz!"
Now, because no one wanted Billionaire Mike Bloomberg to be their president, he wants to do the same thing as Rudy. He simply doesn't want to let go, either.
History lesson.
We never had Term Limits in NYC before. We had a Democratic machine. Whatever job you got, it was pretty much for life, until a job above you opened up, and they moved you into that one.
The upside was you had a great many years logged in doing this stuff, so you got the hang of it, and usually became pretty good at it. Things ran pretty well since there were nearly no learning curves to deal with, or re-inventing of any wheels. You could get things done pretty well and quickly. Everyone knew the ground rules, and who to call to get something done.
The downside was, it was almost impossible to break into that system from the outside. You came up through the inside and earned your stripes. It was NY's answer to a gated community. For you techies out there, think AOL in the early days of the Web.
So, whose idea was Term Limits?
Three guesses.
Rudy Giuliani. Rudy kept peeing his pants he wanted in sooooo badly.
He pushed; he pulled; he bounced from foot to foot; he called people dirty names; he had press conferences; he got as much front-page Tabloid time as he could; he slept with staffers—anything he had to do to cram the concept of Term Limits down the throat of NYers in his attempt to gain the Mayor's office. Because breaking up the old system was the ONLY way Rudy was 1) going to get his hands on the Mayoralty in the first place; and 2) be able to have a City Council that would give him what he wanted: Get his people in there.
Term Limits—there's the ticket! Push everybody out. Then I can pack it with people answerable only TO ME!!! Hence, Rudy's Rule. Term Limits for every NY office.
So, that's what Rudy did. Screamed at the citizens of NY until they finally gave him Term Limits. Out went all the incumbents everyone knew. In came a rotating roster of shiny new pols no one had ever heard of. Who now took forever to learn the job, then had to stop and focus on running for re-election, or if their time was up, run for that next higher office—not because he/she was qualified for it, but because they were now out of a job, and, hey, even pols have to eat, ya know?
But, they gave Rudy whatever he wanted. Lots of things that he could then take credit for. And, since these short-term pols had no real constituency built up, Council members couldn't squawk a whole lot. They stayed faceless. And voice-less.
But NY got used to this new system. And not trusting ANY pol to be anything BUT a pol, decided it liked this rule. Rudy's Rule. Keep the pols hungry.
This was severely tested on 9/11/2001, as we were gleefully heading to the polls on primary day (still, Democratic NYC's "real" election day) to elect our next mayor—Rudy's run was expiring thankfully, according to the Term Limit law he himself had crammed down our throats. Bye-bye, Rudy!
Then, primary day morning, here come the planes. You might have heard about it. It was in all the papers.
So, Rudy, who had been drooling over NY's Senate seat for some time, got to thinking while he was hauling ass away from the World Trade Center site to save his skin and that of his police and fire commissioners (Rudy lap dogs who would have been pretty useless back at the disaster site anyway, doing their day jobs, since they didn't know much): "Hey, this could be big, ya know? Look at all those cameras. Hey, someone call me a press conference!"
And you'll be shocked to hear this, I know, but Rudy then got the idea...What if I were STILL MAYOR? What if I didn't step down? I could go National, ya know?
So, Rudy came to a battered New York, which was still in shock, and said, It's OK! I'll stay with you! I, Rudy Giuliani, will lead you through this horrible crisis! Here, sign here... We just push those pesky Term Limit laws out of the way, and we'll get going on showing the world that I'm taking care of all this.
THAT shook New York out of its stupor. "WHAT???!!!???"
Term Limits. Let's dump 'em, and I'll stay on as Mayor.
GET LOST, PUTZ!
NYers overwhelmingly voted shortly after the attacks to keep Term Limits.
Poor Rudy... hoisted on his own Rudy Rule.
So, that's how we got Rudy running for president—because he was thrown the hell out of New York.
Today
So, no, Mike, we don't need you to run for a third term just because you're bored. And have nowhere else to go. The City likes you. You did an OK job. But not enough to overturn the entire system we've gotten used to; that works for us.
Now, leave.
Because if you stay, everyone else has to stay. The polls your office keeps releasing show that NYers like you. We theoretically wouldn't mind you staying around for a while longer. Again, you did OK, don't take this personally. But that doesn't apply to the rest of City government. We're happy to have them all move along, and we'll bring in a new crop of pols to keep things going.
But if you stay, they have to stay. They go, you have to go. All or nothing.
And if you pass a One-Extra-Term rule, why not pass a Six-Extra-Terms rule. Or a Twelve-Extra-Terms rule. Or just do away with Term Limits altogether and return to Machine Politics. Except this time, it'll be Mike's Machine!
This is why NYers voted for Term Limits in the first place, Mike.
Just ask Rudy.
posted by Gotham 11:34 AM
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