All Blog Posts from Couric & Co.

Jeff Greenfield is senior political correspondent for CBS News.

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If you ask a lot of New Yorkers, "What did you guys think of Rudy Giuliani the day before September 11th," you may well get an answer along these lines: "We were ready to say goodbye; we liked the job he'd done in making the city safer, cleaner, more confident, but we'd had enough." If you pursue the idea a little further, and ask those who cover politics about the Mayor's approval rating, they're likely to guess that it was somewhere in the mid-30s or low-40s.

The reality is more complex. By the fall of 2001, Giuliani had recovered from a series of missteps and bad breaks that had plagued much of those years: police clashes with minorities, including two fatal shootings of unarmed blacks; a messy domestic life including a separation from his wife that he announced at a press conference--apparently, the first time she'd heard he news. There were endless fights not with hoodlums, organized crime big-shots, and incompetent bureaucrats, but with street vendors, jaywalkers, cabbies, museum officials who display offensive materials.

But by the late summer of 2002, his job approval rating had climbed back above 50%. And had term limits not rendered him ineligible to run, he might well have won a third term, though not by a landslide.

What was true, however, was that there was a palpable sense of exhaustion after nearly 8 years of a combative mayor. Supporters, critics, and reasonably neutral journalists are in remarkable synch on this point.

The Village Voice's Wayne Barrett, one of his severest critics, says: "Rudy is a tremendously successful human behind when he knows what he's going to do next...He had no idea what his personal career plan was in the second term [so] he was all over the place. He was getting street vendors. He was getting jaywalkers. He went from one crazy initiative to another crazy initiative."

Andrew Kirtzman, who covered the mayor throughout his tenure, said, "I think New Yorkers were exhausted by Rudy Giuliani by that day...By the time his second term came around, had an an urge for battles. Now, this is a man who needs a big war. He's a general, and he was a general in search of a war that didn't exit t that point. And by the end of that second term, people...they had had enough.."

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Start spreading the news: could America next year be facing an all-New York election?

With Rudy and Hillary and maybe Mike Bloomberg in the mix, it could happen.

Click the monitor for more.

Hi everyone.

From Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani saying in 1989 that he supports public funding for abortion...to Democratic hopeful John Edwards spending an eternity styling his hair, the videos on YouTube are embarrassing the candidates -- and changing American politics.

But is it a change for the better?

Now, EVERY move from EVERY candidate is subject to scrutiny...and no mistake goes unpunished.

"The campaigns are no longer in control," says veteran political strategist Simon Rosenberg, and voters have the power not just to donate money, but to broadcast opposition research, and create their own negative advertising.

But voters also have a responsibility to judge these candidates fairly. To decide whether a candidate's position has changed for political reasons--or principled ones. To distinguish between unacceptable behavior...and acknowledging that everyone makes mistakes.

That's a page from my notebook.

Brian Goldsmith is an Associate Producer for the CBS Evening News.

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In his first ads of the campaign, Rudy Giuliani picked a memorable phrase to describe his economic plan. Reaching past the typical GOP script—which is to invoke Ronald Reagan’s name at every turn—Giuliani invoked the name of a particular Reagan policy.

Giuliani said, “We need supply side policies and reduced government spending—fiscal discipline—to keep the economy growing.” The rest of the ad is a very general kind of paean to old campaign saws like “leadership and optimism,” and a strong defense. The one specific in the message—and don’t kid yourself, every word of this thing was carefully chosen—is “supply side.”

Now, if you weren’t as politically engaged in the late 70’s as you are today—or if, like me, you just weren’t born yet—here’s a basic refresher on what supply side means. Remember, in your high school economics class, that bit about supply and demand? Well supply side theory is that good economic policy encourages supply more than demand—production more than consumption—because buying stuff isn’t possible until you’ve made money from selling stuff...

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