Giuliani's Commitments to America

June 12, 2007 — -- As a way of trying to create a vision for his candidacy beyond his performance on 9/11 and his support of abortion rights, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani began rolling out policy proposals Tuesday in what he called his "12 commitments to the American people."

"I'm always doing what people think is impossible," Giuliani said Tuesday morning in Bedford, N.H.

Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination expanded on this point in a follow-up e-mail to his supporters.

"Nothing energizes a government and a people better than challenging it to reform, change and improve," writes Giuliani. "We can do what others thought was impossible and couldn't be accomplished. I did it as Mayor of New York City, and I can do it again in Washington."

Giuliani's '12 Commitments'

Giuliani's "twelve commitments" is a laundry list of generally conservative positions on fiscal discipline, tax-cutting and anti-terrorism plans.

The only plank of the Giuliani platform that runs counter to his nine declared Republican presidential rivals and many GOP primary voters is his pledge to "increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children" -- a tacit acknowledgement that the former New York mayor supports abortion rights.

Many of these issues Giuliani has already established as major themes of his candidacy, including keeping America on offense in the "terrorists' war on us," ending illegal immigration, and imposing accountability.

With the exception of a couple of snipes Giuliani has taken at the immigration reform bill pushed by his presidential campaign rival, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Giuliani -- who is leading in most national polls -- he is running a frontrunner's textbook above-the-fray campaign, directing his assaults at Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and other Democratic presidential candidates.

That tactic also serves to remind voters of his implicit campaign argument, specifically that he has a better chance of defeating a Democrat than his more conservative rivals in what looks like it may be a difficult election year for Republicans.

Today was no exception.

Giuliani Promises Government 'Accountability'

"A lot of what the Democrats are doing is like looking in the rear-view mirror," said Giuliani to the large crowd of supporters in Bedford.

"They want to take the country and they want to take it back to where it used to be in the 1990s: Higher taxes, being on defense against terrorism. My commitment is all to the future. We look back only to look at our mistakes and to improve upon the mistakes we made in the past."

Giuliani said he plans on accomplishing his promise to promote more "accountability and transparency in the federal government" in large part by expanding the Compstat program he used as mayor to attack crime to be used by all the federal agencies.

"We will use it to measure the effectiveness of what we are doing," Giuliani outlined. "Measure the effectiveness what we are doing at the border, with a Borderstat program. Measure the effectiveness of protecting America with a Terrorstat program. Measuring the effectiveness of our State Department program and our Defense Department and all our agencies of government. Doing the things that we are suppose to do, making America's mission more effective in the world."

Giuliani: 'Future Is Not Socialized Medicine'

Taking another shot at his Democratic rivals, Giuliani also pledged he would "give Americans more control over, and access to, healthcare with affordable and portable free-market solutions … The future is not socialized medicine."

Giuliani proposed health insurance vouchers for the poor and for more affluent Americans, "a very big tax deduction so you can purchase your own health insurance and a health savings account so you can put money aside."

Giuliani's "12 commitments" may also just be a starting point.

Over the course of the next several months Giuliani plans to take his message across the country laying out the details of how he will accomplish his commitments and listen to the voters' thoughts pertaining to them.

If from those conversations he is convinced that more should be added, Giuliani has said he will do so.