http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E04E0D81F3BF931A1575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1An argument being urgently made in some newspaper columns and editorials is that New York cannot afford an election right now. We are too much in shock, it is said. We need, or so the argument goes, to suspend all balloting, to nullify the term limits overwhelmingly approved by the voters and to keep the valiant Rudolph W. Giuliani as mayor for as long as it takes to begin rebuilding New York.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E3D8173DF93AA1575AC0A9679C8B63Mr. Giuliani has managed again to do what he so often does: make himself the issue, no matter what the subject may be. In the end, it always seems to be about him. He is such a polarizing figure -- how many New Yorkers do you know who don't either love him or hate him? -- that this politicking for a term extension is already fraying the civic unity that he says he wants to preserve.
In the last few days, the mayor has begun saying that he always favored a longer transition period. He could have used one himself when he took office in 1994, he said. If that is so, he somehow never noticeably shared this recipe for good government with the public -- not until now, when he has a little more than three months to go.