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Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani III (born May 28 1944 ) served as the Mayor Of New York City from January 1 1994 through December 31 2001 . He is currently Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Giuliani Partners LLC, which he founded in January 2002, and a name partner in the Houston-based law firm Bracewell & Giuliani LLP. He gained worldwide renown for his leadership in the wake of the September 11 attacks, which garnered him admiration in New York , and elsewhere. [http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/11/rec.giuliani.prince/ , [http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0202/13/ltm.02.html As Mayor of New York City prior to the attacks of September 11, Giuliani's legacy was fairly tendentious; while NYC's crime rate shrank in keeping with nationwide trends during Giuliani's tenure, his "tough-on-crime" policies have been alleged to have engendered several high-visibility scandals.[http://www.samsloan.com/diallo.htm][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima][http://www.courttv.com/archive/national/diallo/031599_ctv.html][http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F7071EFE34540C718DDDAD0894DE404482] Giuliani is thought to be a potential presidential candidate in 2008. His name has consistently been near the top of Early Polls of potential Republican Party candidates for the 2008 Election . EARLY CAREER Giuliani was born in Brooklyn , New York to Harold Angelo Giuliani and Helen C. D'Avanzo, the children of Italian immigrants. He was raised in Garden City South on Long Island and attended Manhattan College before graduating from New York University School of Law '' Magna Cum Laude '' in 1968. Upon graduation, he clerked for Judge Lloyd MacMahon, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. In 1970, Giuliani joined the Office Of The US Attorney . In 1973, he was named Chief of the Narcotics Unit and rose to serve as executive US Attorney . In 1975, Giuliani was recruited to Washington, D.C. , where he was named Associate Deputy Attorney General and chief of staff to the Deputy Attorney General. His first high-profile prosecution was of Congressman Bert Podell, who was convicted of corruption. From 1977 to 1981, Giuliani practiced law at the Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler Law Firm . In 1981, Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General, placing him in the third-highest position in the Department Of Justice . As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised all of the US Attorney Offices' Federal law enforcement agencies, the Department Of Corrections , the Drug Enforcement Administration , and the United States Marshals Service . In a well-publicized 1982 case, Giuliani testified in defense of the US Government's "detention posture" of interning over 2,000 unlawfully-immigrated Haitian refugees in refugee camps, at one point stating that there was "no political repression" under President Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier . {Link without Title} In 1983, Giuliani was appointed U.S. Attorney For The Southern District Of New York . It was in this position that he first gained national prominence by prosecuting numerous high-profile cases, including the successful prosecutions of Wall Street figures Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken for Insider Trading . Giuliani attracted some criticism for arranging very public arrests of people, then dropping charges for lack of evidence rather than going to trial. He also spearheaded the effort to jail drug dealers, combat Organized Crime , break the web of corruption in government, and prosecute White-collar Criminals . He amassed a record of 4,152 convictions with only 25 reversals. It was in 1983 that Giuliani indicted Marc Rich on charges of tax evasion and making illegal oil deals with Iran during the Hostage Crisis . Rich fled the United States to avoid prosecution, and was controversially pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 2001. {Link without Title} Giuliani first ran for New York City Mayor as the candidate of both the Republican and Liberal parties, attempting to succeed Ed Koch in 1989. Democrat David Dinkins was elected by a margin of 47,080 votes in 1,899,845 votes cast, in the closest election in city history. {Link without Title} MAYORALTY 1993 campaign and election The principal issues of the election of 1993 were crime and taxes. Giuliani also campaigned on what he perceived to be the unchecked expansion of the city's budget and the lack of managerial competence of incumbent David Dinkins. While Dinkins had frequently and eloquently voiced his affection for New York City diversity while in office, his tenure bore witness to , a juxtaposition his detractors could easily construe as well-meaning inefficacy. Giuliani promised a return to social order, addressing day-to-day issues rather than past or imminent crises: :The "street tax" paid to drunk and drug-ridden Panhandlers . :The squeegee men shaking down the motorist waiting at a light. :The trash storms, the swirling mass of garbage left by peddlers and panhandlers and open-air drug bazaars on unclean streets. {Link without Title} Giuliani's message focused on an alleged breakdown of , all were contrasted with Dinkins's appeal to the "gorgeous mosaic" of New York ethnic diversity. Giuliani won the election by a margin of 53,367 votes, with 49.25% of the electorate to the incumbent's 46.42% share. He became the first Republican elected Mayor of New York City since John Lindsay won re-election in 1969. Crime control In his first term as mayor, Giuliani, in conjunction with NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton , adopted an aggressive enforcement-deterrent strategy based on James Q. Wilson 's Broken Windows theory. This involved crackdowns on relatively minor offenses such as jaywalking , turnstile jumping, and aggressive "squeegeemen", on the principle that this would send a message that order would be maintained, and that the city would be "cleaned up". Critics alleged that Giuliani's policies curtailed the civil liberties of innocent citizens. Giuliani also directed the NYPD to aggressively pursue enterprises linked to organized crime, such as the Fulton Fish Market and the Javits Center on the West Side ( Gambino crime family), in the breaking up of mob control of solid waste removal, the city was able to save city businesses over $600 million--an amount larger than any tax decrease in the city's history. One of the first initiatives of Giuliani and Bratton was the institution of CompStat in 1994, a comparitive statistical approach to mapping crime geographically and in terms of emerging criminal patterns, as well as charting officer performance by quantifying criminal apprehensions. CompStat was operationalized by the empowerment of precinct commanders, based on the assumption that local authorities could best institute crime reduction techniques specific to their experiential knowledge of their own localities. This system also enhanced the accountability of both the commanders and the officers themselves. Critics of the system assert that it creates an environment in which police officials are encouraged to underreport or otherwise manipulate crime data. {Link without Title} While Giuliani continued to highlight crime reduction and law enforcement as central missions of his mayoralty throughout both terms, and despite the fact that his efforts met with staggering success across the boards, his achievements were tainted by several tragic, high-profile flashpoints, and numerous allegations of civil rights abuses. Giuliani's own Deputy Mayor, Rudy Washington, alleged that he had been harassed by police on several occasions. More controversial still were several police shootings of unarmed suspects {Link without Title} , and the scandals surrounding the obscene brutalization of Abner Louima and the tragic killing of Amadou Diallo . In a case less nationally-publicized than those of Louima and Diallo, unarmed bar patron Patrick Dorismond was killed shortly after declining the overtures of what turned out to be an undercover officer soliciting illegal drugs. Even while hundreds of outraged New Yorkers protested, Giuliani staunchly supported the NYPD , going so far as to take the unprecedented step of releasing Dorismond's "extensive criminal record" to the public. {Link without Title} The amount of credit Guiliani's policies deserve for the drop in the crime rate is disputed. A nationwide drop in crime preceded Guiliani's election. Critics point out that Guiliani may have been the beneficiary of a trend already in progress. Another factor in the overall decline in crime during the 1990's was the federal government provision of temporary funding for an additional 7,000 police officers and an overall improvement in the national economy. Urban reconstruction Giuliani pursued similarly aggressive real estate policies. The Times Square redevelopment project saw Times Square transformed from a run-down center for businesses ranging from tourist attractions and Peep Show s to a high-price district filled with family-oriented stores and theaters, including the MTV studios and a massive Disney store and theater. Throughout his term, Giuliani pursued the construction of new sports stadiums in Manhattan, a goal in which he did not succeed, though new minor league baseball stadiums opened in Brooklyn, for the Brooklyn Cyclones , and in Staten Island , for the Staten Island Yankees . Media management Giuliani, after being elected, started a weekly call-in program on WABC radio. He avoided one-on-one interviews with the press, preferring to only speak to them at press conferences or on the steps of City Hall. Giuliani made frequent visits to '' The Late Show With David Letterman '' television show, sometimes appearing as a guest and sometimes participating in comedy segments. In one highly publicized appearance that took place shortly after his election, Giuliani filled a pothole in the street outside the Ed Sullivan theater. and Rudy Giuliani at the site of the World Trade Center, on November 14 2001.]] In April 1999 Giuliani formed an exploratory committee for the U.S. Senate , seeking the Republican nomination to fill the seat vacated by the retiring Daniel Patrick Moynihan . His expected Democratic opponent was Hillary Rodham Clinton who later won the election. On May 19, 2000 before the Primary , he withdrew because of Prostate Cancer and the fallout from his relationship with Judith Nathan. Opposition to Brooklyn Museum art exhibit In 1999 Giuliani threatened to cut off city funding for the ” One work in particular, ''The Holy Virgin Mary'' by Turner Prize winning-artist Chris Ofili , was targeted as being offensive to some in the Christian community in New York, leading the artist to comment that "This is all about control." In its defense, the museum filed a lawsuit, charging Giuliani with violating the First Amendment right to freedom of speech. Religious groups such as the Catholic League For Religious And Civil Rights supported the mayor's actions, while it was condemned by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union , objecting to the mayor's Censorship and interference with the first amendment rights of the museum. 1 2 The museum's lawsuit was successful; the mayor was ordered to resume funding, and the judge, Federal District Judge Nina Gershon, declared that ''(t)here is no federal constitutional issue more grave than the effort by government officials to censor works of expression and to threaten the vitality of a major cultural institution as punishment for failing to abide by governmental demands for orthodoxy.''3 Role during 9/11 attack The defining episode in Giuliani's career was his management of the September 11, 2001 Attacks on the World Trade Center . He coordinated the response of various city departments while organizing the support of state and federal authorities for the World Trade Center site, for city-wide anti-terrorist measures, and for restoration of destroyed infrastructure. He made frequent appearances on radio and television to communicate critical information to the public authoritatively: for example, to indicate that tunnels would be closed as a precautionary measure, and that there was no reason to believe that the dispersion of chemical or biological weaponry into the air were a factor in the attack. He balanced the need to make hundreds of decisions directly and immediately, to delegate hundreds of others, and to visit the injured and console the families of the dead. When Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal suggested that the attacks were an indication that the United States "should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian Cause ," Giuliani met the assertion with defiance, declaring, :There is no moral equivalent for this act. There is no justification for it... And one of the reasons I think this happened is because people were engaged in moral equivalency in not understanding the difference between liberal democracies like the United States, like Israel, and terrorist states and those who condone terrorism. So I think not only are those statements wrong, they're part of the problem.[http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/11/rec.giuliani.prince/ With that, New York City rejected the prince's $10 million donation to disaster relief in the aftermath of the attack. In the wake of the attacks, Giuliani was widely hailed for his decisive and undaunted leadership during the crisis. For this, he was named '' TIME '' magazine's Person Of The Year for 2001, and given an honorary Knighthood by Elizabeth II Of The United Kingdom on February 13 , 2002 . {Link without Title} Image Giuliani in his public statements mirrored the emotions of New Yorkers at the time: shock, sadness, anger, resolution to rebuild, and the desire for justice to be done to those responsible. "Tomorrow New York is going to be here," he said. "And we're going to rebuild, and we're going to be stronger than we were before...I want the people of New York to be an example to the rest of the country, and the rest of the world, that terrorism can't stop us." Giuliani was widely praised for his strong leadership and close involvement with the rescue and recovery efforts. .]] Effect on 2001 local elections The 9/11 attack occurred on the scheduled date of the mayoral primary to select the Democratic and Republican candidates to succeed Giuliani. The primary was immediately delayed two weeks to September 25. During this period, Giuliani sought an unprecedented three-month emergency extension of his term, from its scheduled expiration on January 1 to April 1, due to the circumstances of the emergency besetting the city. He threatened to challenge the law imposing term limits on elected New York City officials and run for another full four-year term, if the primary candidates did not consent to permit the extension of his mayoralty.4 Advocates for the extension contended that Giuliani was needed to manage the initial requests for funds from Albany and Washington , speed up recovery, and slow down the exodus of jobs from Lower Manhattan to outside New York City. Opponents viewed the extension as a means for Giuliani to profit politically from the sudden, international prominence of the role of New York City Mayor. Although a provision for emergency extensions is written into the New York State Constitution (Article 3 Section 25) 5, leaders in the State Assembly and Senate indicated that they did not believe the extension was necessary and the election and inauguration proceeded as scheduled. Time Person of the Year In 2001, ''TIME'' magazine named Giuliani Person Of The Year 6. ''TIME'' observed that, prior to 9/11 , the public image of Giuliani had been that of a rigid, self-righteous, ambitious politician. After 9/11, and perhaps owing also to his bout with cancer, his public image had been reformed to that of a man who could be counted on to unite a city in the midst of its greatest crisis. At the same time, however, voices were being raised against the refrain that it was the mayor who had pulled the city together. "You didn't bring us together, our pain brought us together and our decency brought us together. We would have come together if Bozo was the mayor," said civil-rights activist Al Sharpton , in a statement largely supported by Fernando Ferrer , one of three main candidates for the mayoralty at the end of 2001 7. POST-MAYORALTY Consulting After leaving the mayor's office, Giuliani built a security consulting business and gave speeches. On December 1, 2004 his consulting firm announced it purchased accounting firm Ernst & Young's investment banking unit. The new investment bank will be known as Giuliani Capital Advisors LLC and will advise companies on acquisitions, restructurings and other strategic issues. Commercial endorsement Giuliani and Giuliani Partners struck a deal to promote a Wireless Communication company called Nextel. {Link without Title} 2004 Giuliani, who campaigned on behalf of the re-election of George W. Bush in the 2004 Election , was reportedly the top choice for Secretary Of Homeland Security after the resignation of Tom Ridge . Giuliani turned down the offer and instead recommended his friend and former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik . Kerik in his pre-announcement interviews with the White House failed to disclose facts in his past which were certain to disqualify him. After the formal announcement of Kerik's nomination, information known for years to local reporters, but unreported, became widely known. The political fallout was damaging to the perception of competence in the White House Vetting process and doubts as to the political judgment of Giuliani in recommending Kerik in the first place. mobile museum in Dallas, Texas in Sept. 2003]] 2005 On March 31, 2005, it was announced that Giuliani would join the firm of Bracewell & Patterson LLP (renamed Bracewell & Giuliani LLP) as a name partner and symbolic head of the expanding firm's new New York office. Despite a busy schedule the former mayor is known to be highly active in the day to day business of the Texas-based law firm. While there was early speculation that the firm would merge with Giuliani Partners, this is a legal impossibility (As a matter of ethics, lawyers cannot share legal fees with non-lawyers). However, while the firm is completely independent of the consulting business, the two entities maintain a close strategic partnership. 2006 Some have speculated that Giuliani might become a candidate for statewide office in 2006, either for the ). On March 15 , 2006 , Congress announced the formation of the Iraq Study Group (ISG), of which Giuliani is a member. The ISG is a bi-partisan task force charged to assess the ground situation in Iraq and is organized by U.S. Institute Of Peace . On May 12 , 2006 , Cinema Libre Studio is scheduled to theatrically release GIULIANI TIME [http://giulianitime.com/ , a critical, feature-length documentary about Giuliani's personal and political history. ANTICIPATED 2008 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN .]] Giuliani is widely reported to be considering a run for the Presidency in 2008. Supporters point to his leadership of New York City during the 9/11 attacks and his coordination of the emergency response in the immediate aftermath, as well as his track record of success in reducing crime and improving the economy of New York City. The prospect of a Republican candidate easily capturing New York is also something of a tantalizing strategic prospect for the Republican Party, as New York has historically been an overwhelmingly Democratic state. The primary obstacle Giuliani would need to overcome in order to win a primary would be his show him with one of the highest levels of name recognition and support. Even if Giuliani can overcome his liberal record on social issues such as gun control, gay marriage, and abortion, other aspects of his past are certain to be major issues in a presidential campaign. Giuliani's relationship with Judith Nathan , later to become his third wife, was well-publicized by local media, as it appears to have begun before the divorce of his second wife was legally finalized. In Copenhagen , Denmark on October 2, 2005, initiating speculation as to his presidential ambitions in 2008, Giuliani said, "I will be considering it next year." 13 In the latest 2008-related poll, taken by the American Polling Research Institute (March 26-28, 2006), among registered Republicans, Giuliani ties with John McCain for second place with 20% of the vote, while Condoleezza Rice leads with 29%. Trailing, are Newt Gingrich (8%), George Allen (6%), Mitt Romney (4%), Bill Frist (3%), and Mike Huckabee (1%). Eight percent were listed as "Unsure".14 in October 2005 to become the first federal committee formed with the sole purpose of encouraging former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to run for President of the United States in 2008. As of January 2006, it remains the only committee formed for this reason. By law, Draft Rudy Giuliani for President cannot coordinate its activities with the former mayor. ELECTORAL HISTORY
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