"Political Transvestite" to Push Race Based Campaign?

Thomas Edsall, the political editor for the Huffington Post, has an article out that makes the case that Rudy Giuliani is going to use a race based campaign strategy to win the Republican nomination. In the article, dated November 4, 2007, Edsall argues that Giuliani's political suceess in New York was based on racial appeals to white conservative voters. Here is a quote from the article:

The themes the campaign are lining up for renewed emphasis are those reflecting Giuliani's confrontational stance towards black New Yorkers and their white liberal allies, as well as his record of siding decisively with the police against minorities who launched protests alleging police brutality during the years he was mayor from 1994-2001.

Giuliani's eight years as New York's chief executive exemplified a Northern adaptation of the GOP's politically successful "Southern strategy" - the strategy playing on white resistance to and resentment of federal legislation passed in the 1960s mandating desegregation - resistance that produced a realignment in the South and fractured the Democratic loyalties of white working class voters in the urban North from 1968 to 2004.

"Race is at the heart of Rudy's story," according to Wayne Barrett, one of Giuliani's preeminent biographers. Giuliani ended race and gender preferences in New York's city contracting. He eliminated open admissions at City University and re-instituted testing requirements for the school -- requirements which disadvantaged black and Latino applicants seeking to complete the four-year curriculum. Also angering black leaders, Giuliani instituted tough law and order policies that were consistently cited by his administration as the driving force pushing crime rates down over 60 percent during his tenure as Mayor.

If Giuliani is the nominee, we are going to see a campaign based on fear that will rival anything we ever got from Karl Rove and George W. Bush. The question is whether Democrats are up for the fight.

The way to defeat a campaign based on social populist themes that are designed to appeal to white conservatives is to run a campaign based on economic populist themes. Issues such as healthcare, job security, making higher education more accessible, and union rights can counter the themes that Giuliani will be raising. What doesn't work, though, is to just act self-rightous and complain about Republican racism. That won't cut it.