Rudy's Follies

I last wrote on the New York Senate race in early February, in the wake of, if you recall, the mess Hillary Clinton made of the pardon of imprisoned Puerto Rican FALN operatives. Hillary, I thought, had a shot - long, but a shot - of beating Rudolph Guiliani, if she got her act together quickly.

But, went the caveat, overnight is a long time in politics. A week is forever. There is time. But just barely. To win, Hillary Clinton has to get lucky, get moving, and get Guiliani to make some big mistakes.

A month-and-a-half is a very long time in politics. Especially in the media hyper-drive capital of the world.

Mistakes? Giuliani's made a few. Mostly it's just Rudy being Rudy, but lately the stakes have been higher - literally life and death - and the New York media glare has, if possible, gotten even more intense. Not to mention that Hillary has lately developed a sense of pitch for New York politics, this after an early campaign that seemed to reveal a tin ear for the way the tune goes here.

So the Senate race with the all-star cast has shed the awkwardness and false steps of its previews and has begun to live up to its billing.

Regarding Patrick Dorismond, the unarmed man of Haitian descent shot last week by a plainclothes policeman: Giuliani can complain all he wants that H. Clinton has injected politics into the situation - that is his prerogative, and this complaint is his political weapon. But Rudy made the shooting fair political game by rushing to paint a picture of Dorismond as a violent man and by releasing, possibly in violation of the law, Dorismond's sealed juvenile record. It would have been inappropriate - at least politically - for Hillary to try to make hay of the shooting itself. But the actions and statements of the mayor of New York are, by definition, fair game to his political opponents. They are a part of his record in office. By taking action, and by doing so in typically Rudy-esque fashion, the mayor made himself a legitimate target.

It's a target that's all the more inviting because it's painted right on what is essentially the centerpiece of Giuliani's achievements - cutting crime in what was at least perceived as the crime capital of America. If you are going to take credit for good arrests you had better be prepared to take the blame for police actions gone bad. And, as every New Yorker knows, the Dorismond shooting was not an isolated incident. It was, in fact, the third police shooting of an unarmed black man in 13 months. This may or may not fairly represent some terrible trend in a police force that puts their lives on the line 24-7. But plenty of reasonable folks of all colors, with and without political motives, are beginning to ask just what's going on here - and why the mayor doesn't seem willing to even allow that there may be a problem.

Of course, Giuliani can't very well admit that there's a problem, not given the political realities of the race he's in. To do so would be to han H. Clinton an invaluable edge in the race ahead. Every time he would boast of his record on crime, she would then be able to rejoin that this record has come at an unacceptable cost - why, even the mayor himself admits there are serious problems with the way policing is done in his city.

Rudy is Rudy, and that's a big part of his appeal. He's tough as nails and doesn't compromise. He doesn't act like a politician - you know where he stands and he stands firm even when he knows you're not going to like it. But he's painted himself into a corner with a style that has consistently fallen short of conciliatory. Mayor Giuliani has so seldom admitted to being wrong during his two terms, even regarding the most trivial matters, that for him do so now would not only run wholly counter to what is expected of him but be something on the order of a political bombshell.

So how does one handicap the race now that it's been truly joined? Is the Dorismond flap, as former New York Mayor-turned-pundit Ed Koch recently put it, "going to kill [Giuliani's] career"? Hardly. Not by itself. The thing that makes this contest fascinating, aside from the high profiles of the candidates and the unprecedented nature of a run by the first lady, is the great polarity of the electorate. Giuliani and Clinton are fighting for what is to all appearances a sliver of undecided voters.

Though the mayor and first lady are actually not so far apart on "hot button"-type issues such as abortion (they're both pro-choice), you really couldn't find two candidates further apart in style and in constituent appeal. Rudy is, of course, Rudy … and Hillary is, despite speculation that she was the unwavering voice of hard-line liberalism in her husband's administration, every bit as much a rider of the political winds as Bill - though she may not be as good at it.

What The NYPD Did Right Stanley Crouch weighs in on the Dorismond shooting

It's a situation that creates an interesting problem for anyone who would seek to run against him. On the one hand, your anti-Rudy constituency is readily identifiable and galvanized. On the other hand, battle lines are so tightly drawn over Rudy himself - for and against-that finding a wedge to shake loose the votes needed for victory becomes tricky indeed. For anyone who would run against him. And Hillary isn't anyone. She's easily as polarizing a figure as Rudy.

Most folks who support Giuliani at this stage are unlikely to look at his recent missteps and decide that he isn't their man, after all. So Clinton plays politics with the New York City police situation at her own risk. Hillary already has the votes of those who are most outraged at the mayor and the tactics of his police force-blacks and Latinos are overwhelmingly for her, against Giuliani. So she must tread lightly to ensure that, in turning off that sliver of swing voters to the idea of Senator Giuliani, she doesn't turn them off even more to notions of Senator Clinton. She's said her piece, and the politically smart thing for her to do right now would be to back off and see if Giuliani continues on in self-destruct mode. Just as she was smart to heed Bill Clinton's advice that, as an interloper, she couldn't weigh in on the Diallo shooting and verdict.

It once again comes down to the minivan vote, or soccer moms, or call-them-what-you-will-the upstate and Long Island swing voters who make the difference in any New York statewide election. They tend to be Republican, true, but they also tend to disdain New York City. So it's a wash.

Hillary's been smart, so far, to realize their importance and has made frequent swings upstate. Giuliani, as a Republican, would tend to have the organizational advantage here but he has not made a great many friends in the New York Republican establishment-remember his endorsement of Democrat Mario Cuomo? Republican New York Governor George Pataki does.

When I last wrote about this race, I noted that Hillary needs to give the voters a reason for her candidacy that goes beyond her political ambition. I'll say that again, but with a twist: Hillary needs to offer the undecided few-and even those now in the Giuliani camp-something he can't give them. Traditionally, for a Democrat, this would be reproductive choice. But, as noted above, that won't work here. Education, however, might.

It's the right message for Hillary and it plays to a weakness in Giuliani's record. New York City's public schools are in crisis. It's not wholly the mayors fault, and he'll tell you how he's fought tooth and nail to gain more control over the school board, but the fact is he's vulnerable there. "Putting our children first" or some such articulation of the message will likely find traction with the soccer moms and will make a virtue out of Hillary's tabula rasa quality while making a vice of Rudy's record.

Giuliani, meanwhile, both burdened and buoyed by his record, will take the only road left him: try to make this election a referendum on Hillary, the Clinton administration, and H. Clinton's New York political allies. Either way, it's going to be tight and down to the wire … and may very well be decided by party-line voting from the top of the ticket-Gore v. Bush-on down.

Meanwhile, stay tuned: The Clinton Justice Department has yet to decide whether to press federal civil rights charges in the Diallo shooting. Nasty? Politicized? We ain't seen nothing yet.