Free Republic

ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York Republicans are completely out of power for the first time in four decades. Democrats rule the executive and legislative branches and hold 26 of the state's 29 congressional seats. On the fringes of this grim political tableau hovers a larger-than-life figure who won worldwide acclaim after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Rudy Giuliani, considered the GOP's best chance for redemption, has a new nickname: Rudy the Savior...

Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman said Thursday he's backing Rudy Giuliani for president, throwing his support behind a fellow moderate Republican and former mayor. "The shared vision as mayor of getting things done, tied in with his strong stance on security, Rudy gets that," Coleman told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday. "So you tie those two together and it's a pretty powerful combination." Coleman also called Giuliani "ultimately electable," a pitch that Giuliani has made throughout the campaign. The two men got to know each other when Coleman was mayor of St. Paul, Minn., and Giuliani was mayor...

What if the current polls in Iowa are the final result? What if Romney wins in Iowa and then comes in first again in New Hampshire? What if Giuliani stumbles badly in Iowa and finishes fourth? What if Huckabee surges and finishes second in Iowa? What if Fred Thompson makes an unimpressive third-place finish there? And, on the Democratic side, what if Hillary only narrowly beats Obama in the first caucus state? With two months to go before the Iowa caucus, everything can change, and probably will, but it is worth speculating on what the impact will be if things...

It's over. The tempestuous love affair between Rudy Giuliani and New York City is headed for divorce court. It's a mutual, bitter split. Voters strayed first. Ever since the former mayor left City Hall in January 2002, many New Yorkers have airbrushed him out of their pictures. Like cheaters ashamed of a one-night stand, liberal New Yorkers woke up and lied to themselves — they never voted for that Republican! Now Giuliani is returning the favor. Just as he dumped his second wife before the TV cameras, he is dumping much of the crossover approach that made him a great...

<p>Yes, Giuliani - the national front-runner for months now - holds close to a five-point lead over former Sen. Fred Thompson in the latest Real Clear Politics averages.</p> <p>But there are big warning signs that make a Giuliani nomination a dubious proposition at best. Look - I'm no disinterested observer. I am an active Democrat and was a polling strategist for President Bill Clinton. But a big part of me would like to see the former mayor win the nomination; I'm a New Yorker, and of all the Republicans, he is most to my liking philosophically.</p>

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani on Saturday used news of a plot to blow up a John F. Kennedy International Airport jet fuel line as another example of why he should be elected president. Giuliani told a crowd of 700 gathered at a Broward County Republican fundraiser that Democrats ignore the Islamic terrorist threat and that he is the Republican candidate best capable of handling it. "I've had the most experience dealing with terrorism," Giuliani said, citing his experience as a federal prosecutor and later as mayor of New York City, where he served during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks....

Powerline Post by John Hinderaker (excerpts) "A couple of years ago, the conventional wisdom was that Rudy Giuliani would be a formidable Presidential candidate, but could never get the Republican nomination because of his liberal views on some social issues. I believe that we were among the first to question this assumption...At the Candidates' Forum, the Giuliani campaign has started a thread titled Social Conservatives Back Giuliani, which cites some of the recent poll data...UPDATE: Interesting--so far, the commenters on Giuliani's Forum site are pretty much unanimously OK with his position as laid out above. That could change as more...

HOUSTON — In a shift of tactics, Republican presidential contender Rudolph Giuliani acknowledged his liberal views Friday, calling a woman's right to choose an abortion one of his "core beliefs." After a week of criticism for making contradictory comments about abortion, Giuliani also said he backs gay domestic partnerships that aren't marriage and the right of states to restrict guns. Meanwhile, in an article titled "Behind Giuliani's Pro-Choice Gamble," found at www.Time.com, author David Von Drehle states that "Giuliani's decision to be more forthright about his pro-choice stance on abortion may be the boldest step of the Presidential campaign so...

HENNIKER, N.H. -- Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani defended his positions on a late-term abortion procedure and gun control Tuesday as he faced skeptical GOP voters who questioned his sincerity. "I don't think there's an inconsistency," the former New York mayor said of his long-standing support of abortion rights and his affirmation last week of the Supreme Court's decision to uphold a ban on what critics call partial-birth abortion, a measure he opposed in the past. Once an advocate of strong federal gun controls, Giuliani also disputed the characterization that he advised President Clinton on the matter, talked of leaving...

The popularity of presidential candidates in opinion polls at this stage of the campaign is almost completely a function of name-recognition or how much media coverage they have already received or purchased from the liberal media. Yet that is one of the unfair criteria that Fox News will use to select the Republican presidential candidates for a May 15 debate in South Carolina. The arrangement could prevent a true conservative from emerging as a "serious candidate" in the GOP. It may also be designed to help frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, labeled a fake conservative by Terence P. Jeffrey of Human Events,...

The Rudy Giuliani Truth File in his own words and deeds - quotes, speeches, transcripts, clips, reports This is the start of a series of threads that will be used to expose the truth about Rudy Giuliani in his own words and deeds. Please post all of the quotes, speeches, interview transcripts, video clips, photos, newspaper/magazine articles, reports, records, statistics, NYC budgets, NYC spending, political appointments, gun grabs, connections to the gun control lobby, lawsuits against gun manufacturers, the truth about crime reduction in NYC, private property grabs, asset forfeitures, abuses of office, individual rights trampling, constitution trampling, violations of...

We've got some real challenges facing us. FR was established to fight against government corruption, overstepping, and abuse and to fight for a return to the limited constitutional government as envisioned and set forth by our founding fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and other founding documents. One of the biggest cases of government corruption, overstepping and abuse that I know of is its disgraceful headlong slide into a socialist hell. Our founders never intended for abortion to be the law of the land. And they never intended the Supreme Court to be a legislative body. They...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani defended Bill Clinton on Wednesday over the former president's counterterrorism efforts, saying recent criticism on preventing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is wrong. Political bickering over which president _ Clinton or George W. Bush _ missed more opportunities to prevent the attacks has been escalating since Clinton gave a combative interview on"Fox News Sunday"in which he defended his efforts to kill Osama bin Laden. "The idea of trying to cast blame on President Clinton is just wrong for many, many reasons, not the least of which is I don't think...

Despite his promise to appoint "strict constructionists" if elected, Rudy Giuliani recently said he has no interest in overturning Roe v. Wade, that discovered a previously unnoticed constitutional right to abortion......(and) may require government financing of abortions for women who otherwise cannot afford them. Since Giuliani also claims to support "the right to bear arms" (a right that is actually mentioned in the Constitution), he should, by similar logic, advocate the use of taxpayer money to buy guns for poor people. .......his sudden interest in the Second Amendment, like his sudden interest in strict constructionism, is merely an affectation intended...

subscribe to the RNC for Life Report and this month's issue has ranked the candidates. At the top is Senator Sam Brownback, who sponsored the Partial Birth Abortion Act, Human Cloning Prohibition Act, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act and the Assisted Suicide prevention Act. He has also held hearings on the impact of abortion on women. Also ranked highly are Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter and Tan Tancredo. At the absolute bottom of the pro life list is Rudy Giuliani. The RNC for Life points out that Rudy stated in 1999 "No, I have...

Rudy's Abortion Deal-Breaker By Doug Bandow Perhaps it is inevitable that a man who became a national icon also ended up politically tone deaf. He began to believe his press clipplings, sycophants surrounded him, drowning out any criticism, and the rush of White House staff wannabees left him convinced that the bandwagon could not run off-course. Rudy Giuliani obviously doesn't get it, but his support for taxpayer-paid abortions could --and certainly should--prove to be the deal- breaker for pro-life conservatives. Until now, at least, Giuliani had posed the most serious political challenge yet for social conservatives. He possessed the aura...

Washington needs a hefty dose of fiscal discipline. To restore accountable and effective leadership to America, government needs to run more like a business. That is what I did in New York. My administration inherited a $2.3 billion deficit. We responded by imposing fiscal discipline. We cut programs. We cut taxes. And we got results. We turned the deficit into a multibillion-dollar surplus. We cut bureaucracy by 20,000 workers - while increasing cops on the street and teachers in the classroom. And we cut taxes 23 times, all while working with a Democrat-dominated city council. Every year - in good...

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani tonight joined the members of the National Abortion & Reproductive Rights Action League of New York State (NARAL/NY) for the group's 16th Annual Gala Awards Reception at B. Smith's Restaurant in Manhattan. This year's awards were presented to Wendy Mackenzie, for her work in several pro-choice organizations; Department of Health Commissioner Margaret Hamburg for promoting a policy that reproductive healthcare must be viewed as part of the overall scope of healthcare; Christy Haubegger, founder of the bilingual magazine Latina, which tackles issues like abortion and birth control; and Claudia Crown Ades, who underwent an abortion in...

Rudy Giuliani: Take Me or Leave Me -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Roger Simon Apr 12, 2007 CHARLESTON, S.C. — Rudy Giuliani says that the standard for judging his troubled personal life should be how it affected or did not affect the job he did as mayor of New York. "We all have personal lives, we all have things that go right and wrong in our personal lives," he told me. "The real question is: How does it affect how you can perform?" "Does the fact that I may have had some problems in my personal life mean that I don't perform my...

<p>About 9 A.M. yesterday, United States Representative Carolyn McCarthy was on her way to Southampton, L.I., for a day off when a call came in from Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's office. Could she turn around and come to City Hall -- right now -- to appear with the Mayor at an 11 o'clock news conference and help make the case that gun control might have prevented the Empire State Building shootings?</p>