Giuliani's "bullshit" problem

Last Friday, TPM posted the video of a shrieking Rudolph Giulini back when he was trying gain recognition with white voters in the outer boroughs in advance of his campaign to unseat David Dinkins as mayor.

His supporters, reliably, have cried "foul," but Steve Benen explains why it matters.

A year later, Giuliani asked aides to identify potential pitfalls for his mayoral campaign. The "vulnerability study" cited Giuliani's "shrieking performance," and noted that he had inexplicably failed to denounce those who levied racist attacks on Dinkins.

That's why the video clip is important, not because of a candidate's profanity, which is hardly a disqualifier in a presidential race, but because Giuliani's speech appears to have been an attempt to stoke racist animus against an African-American mayor.

Make no mistake, in 1992 every New Yorker knew what Giuliani was trying to do and why he wouldn't disassociate himself from racist cops. Giuliani knew that he wasn't about to crack the African-American vote against an incumbent African-American mayor, so he veered hard right to appeal -- remember this was 1992 -- to the beset-on-all-sides white vote. It was transparent. And it worked. Though barely.

That said, I doubt this revelation will have much impact on GOP voters. In fact, it may help him (Civilians reviewing the actions of the New York City police? "Bullshit!"). But it sure does underscore his temperament issue while also dredging up the fact that this "principled" guy does have a long history of trying to work one group of citizens against the other. Do we really need another president with that kind of ability.