As so often happens with the primary system of selecting finalists to play off for office, New York seems to have saddled itself with two candidates for mayor – equivalent to governor of the city – on Sunday, neither of which most people want: the black Democratic candidate David Dinkins – who would normally be a shoo-in – is handicapped by the fact that black activists are at daggers drawn with the large New York Jewish community, while Republican Rudolph Guilani seems to be forlornly campaigning on a computers against corruption platform – if we had handheld computers, we would have $150m a year more in revenues from parking tickets, he declares, holding out the vision of a future where computers keep detailed records on companies doing business with the city, and a city-wide approach to planning (Life will be hell as the husband of another politician, Margaret Thatcher remarked when first introduced to the joys of the cellular phone) – but Giuliani does know what he’s talking about (he insists) I have unique knowledge of handheld computers, and that comes from my investigation of corruption and manipulation in contracts, the former Federal prosecutor says – Stanley Friedman [former Bronx Borough president] and his buddies rigged the bids for handheld computers to a company with no record of success at all that said it could supply the Parking Violations Bureau; Stanley Friedman was a hidden stockholder of that company – we don’t have handheld computers now because of Democratic corruption.
