Giuliani Offers Pledge Of Fiscal Restraint, A Vow to Beat Clinton

Without actually consulting the sheet, Giuliani eagerly reeled off and ridiculed proposals the Democratic front-runner offered this week as she sought to focus on the middle class, including a tax credit for parents paying college tuition and matching the first $1,000 Americans put in 401(k) plans.

He then turned to a proposal Clinton floated late last month, modeled on a program in Britain, in which children would be given $5,000 at birth that they could spend when they are older, which some advocates tout as an anti-poverty program.

"Remember the Hillary baby bonds," Giuliani said, laughing at the notion. "We pointed out in strong terms how irresponsible this was. . . . She gave them up in three or four days."

Clinton has said the bonds were not a specific proposal she was offering. But while all the Republican contenders use Clinton as a punching bag, Giuliani is unmatched in his focus on his home-state rival.

Giuliani also trotted out another stump tactic that seemed to thrill the audience of Republicans, using a dream he said he has had "at least five times" to mock the Democratic White House contenders. In the dream, he said, the three leading Democratic candidates, Clinton, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) and former senator John Edwards (N.C.) are flying on a plane together to France, where they planned to get "failed" ideas on public policy that the ex-mayor said would transform America into a socialist country. At the same time, he said, new French President Nicolas Sarkozy is flying to the United States to bring "our quintessential American principles" back to his nation.

And while he avoids discussions of social issues whenever possible, he goes further than many of the other Republican contenders in embracing other conservative touchstones.

President Bush, even when he had a higher standing with the public, quickly gave up touting private school vouchers; Giuliani mentions them frequently on the stump, to applause. Giuliani proudly talks about his work on issues that unite economic and social conservatives, such as reducing crime and the number of people on welfare, both of which had huge drops when he was New York's mayor. Giuliani's critics dispute whether that was a result of Giuliani's efforts, President Bill Clinton's work in Washington or economic growth that neither had much control over.

On the Iraq war, Giuliani often sounds more hawkish than Bush, a fact likely to play well in the South. At the ice cream shop, where Giuliani gave a five-minute address assailing Hillary Clinton and then spent more than 30 minutes shaking hands, one woman shouted repeatedly, "How will you get the troops home?" Giuliani, who has gone through something of a personality transformation from the tempestuous mayor in the 1990s to the sunny candidate this year, at first tried to ignore the woman. Then, without turning toward her, he smiled and said his goal is to get the troops out of Iraq, but after "success."

"How about the goal of the United States of America in Iraq is victory," he said later, to loud applause in the Rock Hill speech. "How about success defined as an Iraq that is stable and will act as an ally for us . . . then we withdraw the troops. . . . The president used this expression and I wish he would use it more: 'return on success.' They should be brought home on success."

Giuliani still has some work to do. Some social conservatives are still wary of the party's front-runner.

"From a fiscal perspective, he's done fine, but from the social side I have problems with him," said Randy Page, a GOP activist who is on the board of the Palmetto Family Council, a major conservative group in South Carolina. "I would be very uncomfortable with him" as the nominee.