MICHAEL O. ALLEN

Menu
Tag

Giuliani

GOP Veepstakes

By HomepageNo Comments

Word is out this evening that Sen. McCain is finalizing his vice-presidential pick tonight. Because we may know as soon as tomorrow who he’s chosen, it’s now or never for another round of veepstakes.

If I were advising McCain, here’s who would be on my suggested short list:

Tom Ridge
Kay Bailey Hutchinson

As a Democrat, those are the only two that I think could be game-changing. Tom Ridge might piss off the lunatic fringe, but I just don’t think that they’d abandon the party at the end of the day. Not for a guy who’s going to be spending the next four years going to funerals.

Hutchinson, in my view, has almost no downside. She’s not an excellent campaigner, but I don’t think that’s a big deal in this campaign. McCain’s best hope of attracting die-hard Clintonites is to pick a woman, and Hutchinson’s the best of the bunch. She might also present a good contrast to Biden in the debates. Hutchinson is the pick that I fear the most.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is worthy of serious consideration, but she arguably wouldn’t meet the ready-to-be-president criterion. I don’t think she gets McCain anything that Hutchinson doesn’t get him already.

Meg Whitman might also be worthy of serious consideration. But her inexperience and at least questionable record at eBay could be liabilities. She also doesn’t get McCain much that Hutchinson doesn’t get him already.

Finally, Mike Pence and Rob Portman might also be worthy short-listers. I have long thought that Pence would be an excellent candidate, but he’s almost completely unknown. He’s the Chet Edwards of the GOP veepstakes. Mike who? Portman is a solid if uninspiring choice. He’s got economic experience, but that could be a liability — it might be seen as a pick from weakness rather than strength.

Although McCain has some good choices, my guess is that he’s going to go for Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty. For some reason, the conventional wisdom sees both candidates as relatively safe picks. My guess is that the McCain camp feels pretty good about their current position in the polls, and they don’t want to rock the boat. I think that’s a mistake.

Romney has an almost unique ability to inspire loathing. People don’t like him. Even though he holds all the right positions for the Republican electorate, he came in third in the primaries. Pawlenty has an amazing ability to inspire sleep and would look like a dope next to Biden.

I think McCain really wants to pick Joseph Lieberman, but he’ll realize in the end that Traitor Joe would be more repulsive to his base than he can handle. Lieberman gets him little that Ridge doesn’t and pisses off more people.

Wild cards include David Petraeus and Eric Cantor.

Who do I, as a Democrat, want McCain to pick? If Jeb Bush and Dick Cheney are unavailable, I’d be delighted if McCain picks Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, or Carly Fiorina.

Who do you think McCain should pick? Who do you think he will pick?

Cross-posted from Facebook.

August 27, 2008
Love0

Nothing Won Yet

By HomepageNo Comments

Amid encouraging recent poll numbers, the Washington Post points out some obstacles to an Obama victory in the general election on Nov. 4.

At the heart of the Obama campaign’s strategy is a national effort to increase registration and turnout among the millions of Democratic-inclined Americans who have not been voting, particularly younger people and African Americans. The push began during the primaries but expanded this month to a nationwide registration drive led by 3,000 volunteers dispatched around the country.

Gaining greater African American support could well put Obama over the top in states where Democrats have come close in the past two elections, and could also help him retain the big swing states of Pennsylvania and Michigan.

There is no guarantee that African Americans will register to vote or, even if registered, would turn out to vote on election day. I covered (in the margins) the bitterly racial mayoral rematch between David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani in 1993 as a reporter for the New York Daily News.

I can offer anecdotal evidence: The fear that blacks felt of a Giuliani mayoralty (which were later borne out) was palpable on election night. But many of the black Harlem residents that I interviewed that election night, despite seemingly knowing what was at stake, did not bother showing up to vote.

The Obama candidacy is an opportunity for Americans to make a choice. It is also an opportunity for black Americans to make history. Sen. Obama bet his whole candidacy on democracy from the bottom up. The challenge is not just for well-meaning whites to vote for the clearly superior candidate in this election. The challenge is also to African Americans.

Or will they prove Obama wrong?

July 28, 2008
Love0

Rudy Backs Regents Requirement

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Sunday, November 16, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

Mayor Giuliani yesterday supported the state Board of Regents’ new foreign language requirement for high school graduates, setting up a possible showdown with Chancellor Rudy Crew.

“The system should introduce more languages,” Giuliani said at a Bensonhurst news conference. “It’s an excellent idea. This whole movement toward higher standards is exactly what the city public school system should be challenged to do.”

Crew had said he had “grave reservations” about the added requirement, included in a new package of reforms for students entering ninth grade in 2001.

The board’s plan would have high school students take two to three years of instruction in a foreign language, then pass a Regents examination to earn a diploma. But Crew said the requirement would be hard on kids in lower-performing schools, reasoning that they would have less time for remedial work. Board officials said that only 7% of city high school students take Regents exams in foreign languages.

J.D. LaRock, a spokesman for the city Board of Education, said yesterday that although the chancellor supports students who want to take foreign languages for advanced Regents diplomas, he has deep concerns about the costs of the new requirement.

“I don’t want to draw distinctions between the mayor and the chancellor’s positions. I just want to highlight the chancellor’s concerns,” LaRock said, adding that more than 1,000 additional teachers would be needed if the requirement is instituted systemwide.

Original Story Date: 11/16/97

November 16, 1997
Love0

New Loss For Diplos By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Sunday, April 20, 1997

Mayor Giuliani yesterday said he would take back 20 more parking spaces newly set aside for foreign envoys as he stepped up his attack on federal officials for modifying a crackdown on scofflaw diplomats.
Giuliani announced the action as he accused the State Department of caving in to “moaning” United Nations diplomats angry at the parking brouhaha.

“What happens is that they are very strong and assertive when they meet with us,” Giuliani said of the State Department, “then when they go back and somebody at the UN yells at them, they change their mind.”

State Department officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Giuliani vowed to step up the pressure by yanking the 20 parking spaces. On Friday, he took back 30 other spaces, out of 110 the city promised to set aside for UN missions under the original plan to make the diplomats follow parking regulations — and pay their tickets.

“I’m not going to give them the same 110 spots if they’ve cut the deal in half,” Giuliani said. “If they’ve taken away the enforcement mechanisms, there’s no way they are getting those spots.”

State Department officials said on Friday that the city action could complicate efforts to solve the parking dispute.

The city and State Department agreed to the initial crackdown in an effort to stop illegal parking by UN dignitaries and their staffs and force scofflaw diplomats to pay millions of dollars in unpaid summonses. The plan would have authorized the city to confiscate the license plates of any diplomat who failed to pay parking tickets for a year or more.

Original Story Date: 042097

April 20, 1997
Love0

Rudy Adds Help For Abuse Victims By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Friday, April 18, 1997

The city will make available 312 new shelter beds for victims of domestic violence in an effort to ease a chronic shortage, Mayor Giuliani said yesterday.

The city also will hire 14 more workers to answer calls from battered women as part of a $7 million expansion of victim support systems that will use state, federal and proposed city funds, Giuliani added.

Giuliani said the improvements are in response to a survey by City Controller Alan Hevesi, whose staff found that women seeking refuge from abusers often could not get anyone to help them.

The controller’s staffers made 112 calls over two weeks to a 24-hour city domestic violence hotline established by Giuliani. The line was often busy and lacked staff fluent in foreign languages other than Spanish.

Eighty-two callers said they were victims. Of 57 callers who got through, 36 were told they could not get help because there were no available beds, Hevesi said.

“Of those who connected, 63% were not able to obtain help in the system and were left on their own,” Hevesi said.

Giuliani stood next to Hevesi at a City Hall news conference as the controller described flaws in the mayor’s system. Giuliani thanked him, then announced his plan.

He insisted he has made improvements since becoming mayor. And he said the system is burdened because the city is taking on more cases by advertising its services.

“The city should really be encouraged here,” Giuliani said. “New York does more about domestic violence than any city in the United States.”

Joyce Shepard, a Queens social worker who, Hevesi said, relentlessly pursued him to look at the shelter system, called the announced improvements a good beginning.

“I felt like I made history in seeing a Democratic controller standing next to a Republican mayor as they put aside their differences and worked together to save the lives of citizens,” Shepard said.

Original Story Date: 041897

April 18, 1997
Love0

RUDY DISSES STATE DEPT: Curbs Diplo Parking Plan By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Sunday, April 13, 1997

Mayor Giuliani opened a new front in the New York City vs. the Rest of the World battle over diplomatic scofflaws, threatening to withhold scores of extra parking spaces promised to foreign envoys.

The mayor announced the get-tough plan in retaliation for the U.S. State Department’s revision of the terms of a crackdown on diplomats, many of them United Nations envoys, who rack up scores of unpaid parking tickets.

Giuliani said the original plan called for the city to designate 310 additional curbside spaces for diplomatic parking. In exchange, the city was authorized to tow and yank the license plates of diploscoffs who build up unpaid tickets for more than a year.

But after the State Department modified that plan Friday, Giuliani said the city wouldn’t come through with the extra parking.

“We’re certainly not going to go forward with all of those parking spaces,” he said.

What’s more, the mayor warned, the city may take back some of the 110 new spots that have already been designated for diplomats.

“This is an old rule I have. When I make a deal, I keep it. If you make a deal, you have to keep it — and they haven’t,” Giuliani said of the State Department.

“We haven’t decided yet exactly how many we are not going to go forward with, but we are definitely going to refuse to go forward with some percentage of them because the State Department has not gone forward with their part of the deal.”

Neither State Department officials nor UN representatives could be reached for comment yesterday.

However, the new skirmish may escalate international pressure for action at a UN General Assembly session on the dispute that was authorized last week.

Foreign diplomats voted for the session because, they say, the original crackdown plan violated principles of diplomatic immunity.

Original Story Date: 041397

April 13, 1997
Love0

Rudy: Plan Won’t Spur Evictions By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Friday, Aprill 11, 1997

Mayor Giuliani yesterday said the city won’t evict current tenants of city public housing as part of an effort to place higher-earning residents in the buildings.

The mayor and Housing Authority officials also said they would not immediately try to relax the federal rule that bars charging tenants more than 30% of their monthly household income for rent.

The announcements came in response to protests over news that the city may apply to participate in a new federal program that would change the rents that may be charged for public housing.

“Once the rules are lifted, that’s it,” said Jenny Laurie, executive director of the Metropolitan Council on Housing.

Called Moving to Work, the program would authorize selected public housing agencies to charge some tenants more than 30% of their household income for rent, while charging less than that from others.

Officials in municipalities around the nation are vying for inclusion in the program, which will be instituted at 30 of the most successful public housing agencies.

The aim of the program is to give public housing agencies flexibility to both increase rental income in the face of cuts in federal housing subsidies while at the same time aiding tenants whose welfare subsidies are cut.

“Last year we got approximately $62 million less than we needed to run our developments, and we foresee that continuing to happen,” said Housing Authority Chairman Ruben Franco. “We have to do creative things in order to stay solvent.”

The city must apply for inclusion by May 19. But the application is not a done deal, Franco said. Housing Authority officials will hold hearings and meet with associations that represent the city’s 600,000 public housing tenants before applying, he said.

“We are not going to use it to raise people’s rent so that public housing is unaffordable for them,” said Franco. “We are not going use it to evict people. We are going to use it to strengthen our ability to house the people that we are mandated to house.”

But housing advocates were not convinced.

“In theory it sounds wonderful, and it would be great if it turns out that they did not displace anyone,” said Laurie. “But in reality there are not enough units to go around to cover all the people who need very-low-rent apartments.”

Original Story Date: 041197

April 11, 1997
Love0

Now Call Interboro Jackie’s Basepath By MICHAEL O. ALLEN and JON R. SORENSEN, Daily News Staff Writers

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Thursday, April 10, 1997

The Interboro Parkway, 5 twisting miles that often require major league reflexes from drivers, will be renamed for baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, officials said yesterday.

The change is expected to be made official by Monday — the eve of a Shea Stadium celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the day the Brooklyn Dodger great broke baseball’s color barrier.

New 6-by-8-foot signs will name the route Jackie Robinson Parkway.

“We want to do it in time for the game on Tuesday night, so that when people go to that game they can travel on the Jackie Robinson Parkway,” said Mayor Giuliani, who asked state lawmakers and Gov. Pataki to make the change.

“It’s appropriate that we are naming a parkway for him because Jackie Robinson paved the way for all of the African-American ballplayers that came after him,” said Giuliani.

Charles Cesaretti, executive vice president of the Jackie Robinson Foundation, called the renaming “a marvelous way . . . to not only remember Jackie Robinson the man, but also a man who contributed a great deal to the City of New York.”

Word of the renaming came as former Robinson teammate Don Newcombe said the Dodger great should have a national holiday named in his honor. “Why hasn’t the government honored him the way it should?” the former pitcher asked.

Robinson joined the Dodgers in 1947 and sparked Dodger teams that won six pennants and one World Series before he retired after the 1956 season.

The parkway being renamed in his honor winds from Jamaica Ave. in Brooklyn — a long fly ball from the site of the old Ebbets Field, where Robinson starred — to Kew Gardens in Queens, not far from Shea Stadium.

Fittingly, the tree-lined road that was first opened in 1935 even passes by Cypress Hills Cemetery in Queens, the site of Robinson’s grave.

Like Robinson, who was a terror on the basepaths to opposing teams, the Interboro has had a reputation as dangerous for drivers because of its narrow lanes and hairpin curves. A $43.1 million upgrade in 1989-91 widened the roadway, improved the dividers between lanes and installed other safety features.

“Jackie Robinson was baseball as far as my family was concerned,” said Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry (D-Queens), co-sponsor with Sen. Serphin Maltese (R-Queens) of the Albany bill needed to approve the name change.

Original Story Date: 041097

April 10, 1997
Love0

Rudy: McCall Playing Politics By MICHAEL O. ALLEN, Daily News Staff Writer

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

Sunday, March 30, 1997

Mayor Giuliani snapped off a defiant reply to state Controller Carl McCall’s complaint that the city improperly blocked two state auditors from checking on city agencies: See you in court.

Stepping up a long-running political feud, Giuliani accused McCall of misusing the controller’s office by flooding city agencies with performance audits that far exceed McCall’s authority.

Giuliani vowed to fight a promised McCall legal challenge over the decision to stop the state auditors from analyzing records at city health and social services offices on Friday.

“We are happy to meet him in court,” Giuliani said, citing a 1977 state court ruling that he said restricts McCall’s office to financial audits. “The fact is he has no right under the Constitution of the state to do performance audits of the city.”

The Republican mayor, who is seeking reelection in November, charged that the Democratic controller had launched numerous audits in a bid to cost him votes at the polls.

“This isn’t looking at the books, the accounts and the records of the city,” Giuliani said. “These are audits to create negative, political audits that he’ll release in August, September and October.”

McCall fired back, insisting that his office was fulfilling its oversight role by auditing delivery of city services.

“The mayor has yet to deal with the substance of any audit,” said McCall. “He has not identified any particular audit that was inaccurate, or incomplete. All we get is the response that it’s political. And I say, ‘Where is the evidence?’ ”

McCall said his office would seek court subpoenas to get city records needed to complete the audits. The audits focus on the city’s screening of welfare applicants and handling of requests for birth and death certificates.

While gearing up for reelection, Giuliani has touted his success in shrinking the welfare rolls and speeding response to requests for copies of birth certificates.

He vowed to block McCall from conducting any further audits at least until after this year’s mayoral election.

“If he wants to subpoena records for these broad-based performance audits, we are happy to test our legal position in court,” Giuliani said.

Original Story Date: 033097

March 30, 1997
Love0

Foes Trash City Over Exporting

By Homepage, New York Daily NewsNo Comments

March 06, 1997

by MICHAEL O. ALLEN and JOEL SIEGEL, Daily News Staff Writers

Mayor Giuliani’s plan to close Fresh Kills landfill and export the city’s trash has prompted howls of outrage — and some eager welcomes — from activists and officials in communities that might get tons of banana peels and dirty diapers.

The city should solve its garbage problem at home and not foist its trash on communities such as Dunmore, Pa., whose landfill is being eyed by sanitation officials, said Dan Scheffler of the Sierra Club of Northeast Pennsylvania.

“It’s ironic that Mayor Giuliani doesn’t want guns imported to New York City, but he doesn’t mind exporting the city’s garbage,” said Lynn Landes of Zero Waste, a Pennsylvania environmental group.

But mayors in two nearby cities with huge trash-burning plants — Newark and Bridgeport — said they would accept New York’s garbage with open arms.

“It’s what the plant is here for,” said Chris Duby, spokesman for Mayor Joseph Ganim of Bridgeport, home to an incinerator whose owners have submitted a bid to burn tons of New York City trash.

The anger and anticipation came in reaction to the planned closing of the massive Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island by the end of 2001. The Sanitation Department recently announced it has received six bids from companies to ship garbage produced in the Bronx out of state for burning or dumping.

Three of the bids call for burning the garbage in Newark, Bridgeport or Hempstead, L.I. The others would dump the trash in Virginia or Pennsylvania landfills.

“We the people in the Ironbound will not benefit from New York City’s trash being burned here,” said June Kruszewski of the Ironbound Community Corp., a group based near Newark’s incinerator. “We don’t like it. We did not want the incinerator to begin with.”

Pennsylvania state Rep. David Argall said Schuylkill County residents feel they may be unfairly dumped on. “You can imagine the frustration my constituents feel,” he said.

But in Newark and Bridgeport, officials had the opposite reaction. Both cities receive huge payments for having the trash plants within their borders. And both signed agreements that all but bar them from restricting the flow of garbage from outside areas.

In addition, Newark and Essex County, N.J., officials said they need garbage for the American Ref-Fuel Co.

If the plant fails to receive enough garbage to operate at an efficient capacity, Essex County must dig into its own treasury to pay off investors who bought bonds that financed the plant, said Newark Business Manager Glenn Grant.

Original Story Date: 03/06/97

March 6, 1997
Love0