Instead of doing a mass communications effort, we’re really going after the niches. We talk to those interested in discreet ways that are relevant to those individuals.

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.

Since 1989, the office of mayor has been transformed by three changes. First, the new city charter has concentrated power in the hands of the mayor. Second, Giuliani made it clear the city was not...

[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...

The new Tammany was wrapped in a cloth of sanctimony. It professed to represent the interests of the poor. Protected in part by civil service and union power, it was immune to elections, and rather...

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...

Abolishing tenure could just turn the decision making over to deans who come out of today’s orthodox academic world. That would mean that few remaining non-leftists would get pushed out.

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

The Achilles heel of academics is their status anxiety. The only way to attack them is with mockery.

He wasn’t on top of this. He sort of farmed this out and he didn’t stay on top of it.

I could see it was a system that needed improvement.

It is a joy to live (on campus), and it is a pleasure to open my house to students,

The dogs love it here,

The question is, what happened between 10 o’clock this morning and 12:30? The statesmanlike option was there last night.

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.