Pubdate: Sat, 18 Nov 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
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Author: Clyde Haberman

BEREFT OF HITS, REPRISING GOLDEN OLDIES

WHEN all else fails, when you sense the audience starting to drift 
toward the exits, go with whatever worked for you before. Stand-up 
comics know this. So do cabaret singers. Also newspaper columnists, 
while we're at it.

And mayors, too.

It has felt like Oldtimers Week at City Hall, with Rudolph W. 
Giuliani dipping into the past to bring back the people and themes 
that made him famous.

We're going to have a "quality of life" crackdown, Mr. Giuliani 
announced. Does that sound familiar? How about his targets? They 
included squeegee men, jaywalkers, panhandlers, homeless people and, 
for good measure, sidewalk pot-smokers. (Seems Mr. Giuliani smelled 
marijuana on a Midtown street on Monday, and immediately added dopers 
to his hit list.)

No doubt, squeegee men can be terribly annoying. Not owning a car, we 
happen to have never seen one. But we are prepared to believe that 
platoons of them are out there making life miserable for suburbanites 
who insist on driving into Manhattan.

The most striking aspect of the mayor's announcement, however, was 
its Golden Oldies flavor. It brought back fond memories of "I'm Henry 
VIII, I Am" by Herman's Hermits. "Second verse, same as the first," 
the song went. You could say the same of the Giuliani administration.

This latest crackdown was a reminder that Mr. Giuliani has presided 
over a virtually agenda-free second term. His tendency has been to 
stick with policies that served him well in his first four years, 
which basically involve throwing the police at any problem that may 
arise.

Not that most New Yorkers are likely to object to the new 
crusade--unless perhaps they themselves get ticketed for jaywalking, 
regarded by many here as an inalienable right. Even so, all this 
underlines the absence of grand initiatives--dare we say 
vision?--coming from City Hall these days.

For the first couple of years after his re-election in 1997, the 
mayor focused almost exclusively on issues that he hoped would serve 
him well in his search for higher office, a quest forced upon him by 
term limits. He spent a lot of time, for example, talking up school 
vouchers. This is an innovation that he once strongly opposed. It is 
something that also seems unlikely to get much of a foothold in New 
York City. But it became for him an appealing issue to bring before 
conservative voters in a statewide campaign.

THEN, as everyone knows, his Senate race fell apart in early spring 
under the twin blows of prostate cancer and a failed marriage. Since 
then, what you mostly hear from City Hall has been, speaking of 
Golden Oldies, the sounds of silence.

Only the most Rudy-phobic New Yorkers would begrudge the mayor time 
off to deal with his illness and messy personal life. Still, the fact 
remains that a very long time has passed without significant new 
ideas pouring out of City Hall. One of the few of note was a proposal 
in June to provide health insurance to some 1.5 million New Yorkers 
who cannot afford it. (And it was only the mayor's bout with cancer 
that made him sensitive to the problem in the first place.)

A check of the city's Web site gives some sense of present priorities.

It lists a total of 249 news releases from the mayor's office since 
April 27, when Mr. Giuliani stunned New York with word of his 
prostate condition. Most of the releases contain about as much 
substance as cotton candy, dealing with an assortment of City Hall 
ceremonies, bills to rename streets and friendly bets on baseball 
games with the mayors of other cities.

Admittedly, news releases are an imperfect gauge of any official's 
activity. But had there been tons of important developments to 
announce, you can be sure they would have been posted on the Web site.

On the contrary, with this administration the second verse has pretty 
much been the same as the first: quality-of-life offensives, one plan 
after another for new stadiums and parades for conquering sports 
heroes.

There is even a familiar ring to a promise by the mayor to reach out 
to New Yorkers who feel alienated from City Hall--blacks and Latinos 
for the most part.

He made such a pledge the night of his re-election, but then failed 
to act on it. After withdrawing from the Senate race in May, he made 
the same point, committing himself to finding a way "to break down 
the barriers that I've created."

Thus far, there is scant public evidence that he has reached out to 
many blacks and Latinos other than maybe the Yankees' Bernie Williams 
and Jorge Posada.
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