What he represents is that part of Giuliani's legacy that has become permanent, on crime and welfare,

Those in blue suits who use thinly veiled race symbols -- when they say welfare and crime and three strikes and anti- affirmative action -- they are sending messages more profound their language.

[The tabloids would relish turning a wonkish and dull re-election campaign into something vastly entertaining.] You know how the papers are going to love this, two harridans mixing it up, ... This could be the equivalent of mud wrestling for fraternity boys.

The key here is Ferrer is running for an office that no longer exists, ... Prince of the City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life.

Under Giuliani, ... once again became the defining credo of a city whose policies and politics had been based on the assumption that the pathological was routine.

Before Giuliani, New York politics had been mostly about striking caring poses in the course of paying off interest groups, ... Liberal mayors like Lindsay and Dinkins spoke endlessly of what the city owed the poor, but they delivered rising rates of crime and welfare. Theirs was the sovereignty of words over deeds.