Dear Editor,
The US presidential race appears headed to a contest between two New Yorkers – Democrat Hillary Clinton versus Republican Rudy Giuliani. Either one can be a winner but Guyanese and other Caribbean Americans prefer Clinton because minorities generally tend to align themselves with Democrats. In addition, Hillary’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, is popular among minorities because his administration was very supportive of their needs and rights.
Giuliani was the city’s Mayor from 1994 to 2001; since 2000, Hillary has been the Senator for the state which is far more conservative than the city. But Hillary has won a majority of votes outside of the city even though she is painted as a liberal.
New York is a Democratic city with three quarters of the voters aligned to the party but New York state is more balanced in voting between Republicans and Democrats. Giuliani also has strong support in the city having won the mayoralty twice after losing to an African American in 1989. Clinton won almost 70% of the votes in the last Senate campaign.
Hillary and Giuliani are enormously popular among New Yorkers and no doubt will win New York State support for their nomination for their respective parties. This means that the city and state will experience a tough battle between the two for the 29 electoral votes in the state that will likely determine the winner of the presidency.
Guyanese Americans I speak with say they are backing Hillary because Giuliani was not a good mayor in the last few years preceding 9/11, just before he demitted office. After 9/11, he became known as the peoples’ mayor. Neither one is ideologically dogmatic although Giuliani is trying to transform himself into a more conservative person to win over conservative voters.
The Democratic base is very comfortable with Hillary and will back her. But she will need to win over independent or so-called floating voters to winning the presidency. And that will be a major challenge. If she wins over independents, she will win the presidency and make Guyanese-Americans happy.
Giuliani faces some family issues. He is thrice married with two estranged children and as such has a much harder job selling himself to a base dominated by Christian conservatives. Giuliani prefers to talk about 9/11 than any other issue. And that alone could come up short in winning the presidency especially if the US remains bogged down in Iraq; a majority of Americans now oppose the war while Giuliani still supports it. So Giuliani may have to find other saleable issues if he is to improve his chances of winning the presidency
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
