Page 45 - Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders

Ch02_Baldoni_141496-7 5/22/03 12:29 PM Page 23
WHO ARE YOU . . . AND WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?
23
CHAPTER 2
and it comes from a place like this, St. Paul’s Chapel. This is a House of
2
God and it’s one of the homes of our republic.
As an Italian American, Giuliani feels the presence of those who made
sacrifices for him. He speaks lovingly of his grandfather, Rodolfo, who came
to America with $20 in his pocket. “So how did he do it? . . . [He and other
immigrants] were able to do it because they kept thinking about this idea in
their head, this idea of America . . . land of the free and the home of the brave.”
He continues with a tribute to his Uncle Rudy, a New York City policeman
who served in the Pacific during World War II and was nearly killed. He con-
cludes this mention with an acknowledgement of how his uncle also risked his
life on his last day of service as a cop to save someone who was about to com-
mit suicide by leaping from the Brooklyn Bridge. What Giuliani has done is to
link himself, his family, and all of America’s immigrants to the culture and val-
ues of America.
Having established his roots, Giuliani launches into a recapitulation of his
record as mayor. He prefaces his record by mentioning a cover of Time maga-
zine in 1990 that called New York “The Rotting Apple.” As Giuliani says, “I
felt that my job as mayor was to turn around the city. Because I believed
rightly or wrongly that we had one last chance to do that, to really turn it
around in the opposite direction.”
Despite some initial hostility, Giuliani did turn around the fortunes of the
city, and in the process reduced crime, increased jobs, and solidified the busi-
ness base. He was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for his efforts
in leading the city during its darkest days post-September 11. Giuliani the
fighter emerges when he speaks of victory in America’s battle against terrorism:

I know we won because I saw within hours the reaction of first, the peo-
ple of New York City, then the people of the United States of America. I
saw within the first hours the three firefighters who lifted the American
flag high, within hours of the attack when it was still life-threatening to be
there.

His victory theme is echoed, this time with levity, in his mention of the
crowds along the West Side Highway, a liberal stronghold. “And when they
cheered for President Bush who none of them had voted for I knew for sure
that we had won.” As he concludes, Giuliani issues a call to action:

[W]e have an obligation to the people who did die to make sure of two
things about which there can be no compromise: Their families need to be
protected just as if they had been alive; and second, this place has to be
sanctified . . . [so that] anybody who comes here immediately . . . feel[s] the
great power and strength and emotion of what it means to be an American.