Question: In fighting crime, you also started small. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the "Broken Windows" theory. Why was it so important to clean up the streets and get rid of graffiti?

Rudolph Giuliani: Well, I very much subscribe to the "Broken Windows" theory, a theory that was developed by Professors Wilson and Kelling, 25 years ago maybe. The idea of it is that you had to pay attention to small things, otherwise they would get out of control and become much worse. And that, in fact, in a lot of our approach to crime, quality of life, social programs, we were allowing small things to get worse rather than dealing with them at the earliest possible stage. That approach had been tried in other cities, but all small cities, and there was a big debate about whether it could work in a city as large as New York. One of the ways that New York used to resist any kind of change was to say, "It can't work here," because they wanted to keep the status quo. There is such a desire for people to do that, to keep the status quo. And I thought, "Well, there's no reason why it can't work in New York City. We have bigger resources. We may have bigger problems, we have bigger resources, the same theory should work." So we started paying attention to the things that were being ignored. Aggressive panhandling, the squeegee operators that would come up to your car and wash the window of your car whether you wanted it or not -- and sometimes smashed people's cars or tires or windows -- the street-level drug-dealing; the prostitution; the graffiti, all these things that were deteriorating the city. So we said, "We're going to pay attention to that," and it worked. It worked because we not only got a big reduction in that, and an improvement in the quality of life, but massive reductions in homicide, and New York City turned from the crime capital of America to the safest large city in the country for five, six years in a row.

I'm a little pressed for time, but initially would say Rudy Giuliani. Based on his 'broken windows' approach to law enforcement in New York, he seems to get that the little things add up to the big things. link here

If we have become a culture that believes the Federal government is the best option for dealing with the "crucial, non-election winning issues" such as levy repair and CO2 emissions and individual healthcare and nutrition for everybody's babies and the Pierson's Milkvetch Weed and radio programming and etc and etc and etc and etc..., then we are a culture that can't deal with those issues. And yes, we were a culture that could deal with those issues, and I believe that we still are, although its a lot harder than it should be.

The only candidate who I've seen that has the right attitude on dealing with most of these "uninspiring issues" is Ron Paul. Unfortunately, he's utterly clueless when it comes to dealing with the issues that are the gov't's purview.

Have we become a culture that can no longer deal with the crucial, non-election winning issues that lurk in the background? Were we ever such a culture?

Have decades of threats from Russians with nuclear bombs, now terrorists with nuclear bombs, eroded our ability to politically address important, but detail-oriented domestic issues

At this early stage do the various 08 candidates seemed better poised to address such uninspiring issues, or worse- which ones?

We have strong political difference on how to deal with important issues like healthcare. Just the fact that our hospitals and doctors KILL 100,000 people a year should be a hot topic in Congress – try to find someone interested in addressing it.