Excerpts of Remarks at a Town Hall Meeting in New Castle, New Hampshire

MAYOR GIULIANI: "[New Hampshire is] a great place to talk about what's gone wrong in Washington. I think that this is not a criticism of any particular person, not necessarily a criticism of Republicans or Democrats. The fact is Washington doesn't work anymore. Do you know how many people have told me that all over the country? In the last four or five years, the thing that has been said to me most often other than talking about the terrorist threat, the thing that I've heard the most often about domestic policy is the following – I can almost state it because I know it by memory now – Washington doesn't work anymore, they don't accomplish anything, we send them there, they either don't fix things or they make things worse when they try to fix them. And then you can fill in the blanks. They don't seem to be able to fix our tax system and simplify it. They don't seem to be able to fix Social Security. They don't seem to be able to fix the astronomically rising costs of Medicare/Medicaid that threaten to take over our entire budget. … So we need a change in Washington. We need a big change in Washington, not just an alteration, of course, we need a change in thinking and the way Washington works and the way Washington has to be made accountable. And I'm the person who can do that. …"

"The reality is that the only [Presidential candidate] that had to tackle a problem like the problem that has to be tackled now in Washington, the only one, is me. I've had the background and experience to deal with making Washington accountable. The other candidates haven't faced a challenge like that. I faced that challenge in New York City. I faced that challenge in 1992 and 1993 when I ran for office. And nobody, absolutely nobody, thought it could be done. Nobody. I said 'We're going to make New York City accountable, we're going to make New York City government work.' And nobody believed it. People wondered if I even believed it. I did. And we made it happen. And all the things people said could not be done got done. … I made the government accountable. We changed the headlines from 'New York City is Unmanageable', which used to be the name of a book, or 'New York City is Ungovernable', which was the title of another book, we changed it to, by 2000, Time Magazine putting us on the front cover saying, 'New York City is the best-governed, most effective city in the United States of America and the best example of urban renaissance.' And we did it just like we're going to do it in Washington – through accountability. We held people accountable." (Rudy Giuliani, Town Hall Meeting, New Castle, NH, 6/6/07)