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To reduce crime in New York City, Giuliani instituted a program called CompStat that compiled detailed statistics on where crimes were occuring so that he could manage resources properly and hold people accountable. Now, he says he wants to apply the same approach to border security, terrorism, and government growth.

Via the Birmingham News:

"I'd establish a border stat program to measure our effectiveness in stopping people from coming over the border," (Giuliani) said. "We have the technology to do it now. But we don't have the accountability tools to measure it, the tools that tell us how many people are we apprehending, how many are getting over, where are they coming over, how do we deploy our resources to stop that. I could accomplish the same results on the border that I did in New York City."

A similar effort aimed at combating terrorists and a bloated federal government would do the same thing, Giuliani said.

"I'd start a terrorist stat program to make sure we are collecting the right information about terrorist threats and make sure it's being disseminated from top to bottom," he said.

"I've promised I will not rehire 50 percent of the positions in the federal government that retire over the next 10 years," Giuliani said. "It would save $23 billion if we did that. But, to do that, you need a program that measures what you are doing and what you're accomplishing. We don't have that now, and because we do not, we don't have accountability in Washington."

As the campaign goes forward and these ideas get fleshed out, they'll be more scrutiny as to whether a CompStat type program can be applied to problems at the federal level. But this underscores the fact that beyond 9/11, Giuliani will run as a skilled manager who can make government function more effectively and efficiently.