Posted on 04/11/2007 8:31:06 AM PDT by rbookward
Imagine the election is today and you are in the voting booth. The republican candidate is Rudy Giuliani. Will you vote for him or not? Why?
Suggestions for discussion:
Motivation:
I've read hundreds of articles and thousands of replies about Rudy, and I'm hoping we can cover all the issues and bring out all the reasons in one thread. (Yeah--I'm an idealist and also missed that other thread...)
I would vote for him if he is the nominee...he will run rings around the Dems.
He may have been a great mayor of NYC but the rest of the country is not NYC. Not by a longshot.
but if he could beat the dems on their home turf then he can beat them anywhere
No I won’t vote for him.
I won’t vote for any politician that thinks the BoR is a negotiable Document.
I won’t vote for any politican that thinks our Border is simply there to outline our country on the map.
I won’t vote for any politician that thinks 2 men have the same right to Marry as a man and a woman.
I won’t vote for any politician that thinks the slaughter of innocent children is a “choice”.
I won’t vote for any politican that thinks freedom means giving up anything to “Proper authority”.
I won’t vote for any politican that is a liberal. No matter what party they belong to and regardless of whether or not it’s the primary or the general election.
Except that he was unable to outpoll Hillary during the 2000 Senate campaign, when he was mayor and she was a carpetbagger.
He basically was extremely unpopular in NYC just before 9-11.
I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but his recent, unrepentant support of federally-funded abortions as a "right" points out how completely and utterly out of touch the man is with his base and with the GOP platform.
His one supposed strength is that he'll be strong on the GWOT -- but how does that differ from most of the rest of the GOP field? It doesn't really, it's just that for some reason Guiliani gets better press for it. I'll take anyone else in the field as being as good as Guiliani on the GWOT without having to betray my conservative principles, or at least betray as many of them as I would have to for Guiliani.
Guiliani supporters, don't point me to poll numbers, please. Those are worthless this far out, since the majority of respondents are just going off of name recognition, not any deep personal support. I don't care if he's currently beating Clinton/Obama/Edwards/etc. 95-5 in the polls right now, that means diddly-squat for what the result will be in 19 months.
Won’t vote for him under any circumstances. I’m a Values Voter, and Rudy’s values are the opposite of those I hold most dear.
I don't trust him and therefore will not vote for him.
Got nothing to do with him being a damnyankee and all. ;~)
Not someone just slightly better than the other candidate.
Some people see agressiveness or arrogance as strong. Nope.
I can get agressiveness or arrogance out of virtually any dustmop dog.
I had a strong dog who was seldom aggressive, only when she needed to be and who could put both her fromt paws on my shoulders when I was standing and look me in the eye (I'm over 6 feet tall) straight across.
Rudy has demonstrated arrogance and aggressiveness in the past, and turn that around just a little it is not a virtue, especially in the person who is the most powerful person in the free world.
It is a recipie for disaster.
It is what most of us strongly disliked about the Clintons.
With little separation in core policy and belief from Bill/Hillary, I see him as equally dangerous to America as well as our enemies.
I believe he's in the right place for the most important issue...the WOT.
He's a tax cutter.
He'd appoint strict constructionist judges.
He won't take crap from Democrats & won't be afraid to speak out & use the bully pulpit.
I'd vote for any Republican nominee as opposed to having a Democrat president presiding over a Democrat-controlled house & a possibly Democrat + RINO filibuster-proof senate!!!!
I guess you missed Rudy re-defining the term to allow a strict constructionist judge to uphold Roe.
I don't give a rip about his personal live or his personal antics. If he wants to cover himself in chocolate sauce and run naked through Times Square singing Hello Dolly, that's his business; it has no effect on me. When he wants to ban firearms based upon their appearance ("assault weapons"), that affects me. When he wants to imposed NYC-style gun laws on the rest of the country, that affects me.
I will never vote for Giuliani. I would rather see Hillary in the White House.
No in the primaries, because there are far better candidates.
Yes in the general election, because the Republican nominee has the best chance of winning other than the Democrat nominee, and that would be far worse than any problems Giulliani would cause.
Of course, 90% of the blowhards here will vote for him over the (D).
OK. TUrns out that in my voting booth, the democrats have decided that since the republicans ran a liberal, they would run a conservative, and so I’m voting for Zell Miller.
Chris Matthews is hiding behind Dick Gregory in the corner.
What does ANY of that have to do with the fact that Rudy's definition of a strict constructionist would allow a judge to uphold Roe?
Another reason I wouldn't vote for him is his weasel words explanation for opposing the right to keep and bear arms. He says he understands the 2nd Amendment, but in almost the same breath he brags that he cut the crime rate in NYC by enforcing NYC's clearly unconstitutional gun laws. The crime rate may have been reduced, but it wasn't because he denied the law abiding people of NYC their 2nd Amendment rights.
Approximately 100,000 applications for NYC gun permits were rejected out of hand while he was mayor. According to what I have read, very, very few permits were granted during that time, and those were for people who are either celebrities, very wealthy, or in some manner politically well connected. OTOH, virtually 100% of the rejected applications were made by ordinary law abiding NYC residents who felt a need for a self defense weapon. No criminals were denied guns by those rejections because criminals don't apply for gun permits, they get their guns illegally because criminals don't obey any laws that get in their way. Why would anyone expect criminals to obey gun laws when they don't obey laws against murder, robbery, rape, etc? Another related reason why I won't forget is that he joined forces with dozens of big city Democrat mayors in trying to destroy the American firearms industry with baseless harassment lawsuits specifically designed to bankrupt them and drive them out of business. AFAIK he still supports Bloomberg's continuing attempt to destroy the industry in defiance of the recently enacted federal law which that makes those lawsuits illegal.
In any case, I make it a point to never, ever forget or vote for any politician who has ever voted or acted in any way to override or take away ANY of my constitutional rights. If every voter followed my example in that regard we would rid ourselves of the would-be tyrants in government within one or two election cycles.
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