Posted on 02/01/2006 5:23:40 AM PST by areafiftyone
Political pundits have long discounted former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani's presidential prospects, claiming that his particular brand of tough-talking, socially moderate conservatism would never play south of the Mason-Dixon Line. But Rudy has never been one to listen to conventional wisdom, and lately at least, he has been turning up the heat in southern conservative political circles.
In just the last week, he endorsed Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry for re-election and met with Evangelicals in Florida. Most impressively, he actually outpaced U.S. Senator John McCain in a just-released Georgia poll, garnering the support of 28 percent of Georgia Republicans to McCain's 22 percent, echoing numbers in December's CNN/USA Today/Gallup nationwide poll. The conservative blog, RightWingNews reported last week that while Condoleezza Rice was the top choice of 230 conservative bloggers for the Republican nomination, Giuliani came in second, beating out U.S. Senator George Allen and Newt Gingrich. Nationwide, Rudy earned a 63 percent favorable rating in a Pew Research Center poll in October.
In addition to supporting Perry, Giuliani has planted a Texas-sized footstep in the Lone Star State—now with three more Electoral College votes than New York. Last spring, he became a name partner in a Houston law firm, Bracewell and Giuliani, noted for its Bush connections and roster of major energy clients.
The Catholic mayor is also busy burnishing his ties to Christian conservatives. Pat Robertson has said Rudy would make "a good president" and the mayor was a headliner for a fundraising committee supporting former Christian Coalition executive Ralph Reed in his bid to be Georgia's lieutenant governor. Last week, Giuliani dropped by an Orlando meeting of the Global Pastors Network and told the Evangelical leaders that "only God knows" if he will run for president. The group offered their prayers for him and he responded in kind, showing an openly devout side not many people had seen before: "I can't tell you from my heart how much I appreciate what you are doing—saving people, telling them about Jesus Christ and bringing them to God."
Still, Giuliani's southern strategy may be an uphill climb. "It's a real stretch for Giuliani to get out voters in southern Republican primaries," Richard Murray, head of the University of Houston's Center for Public Policy said. "He has too much baggage to get through the southern primaries." Murray said Giuliani's best shot may be as a "ticket balancer," a moderate vice president to a conservative ticket leader, especially if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee.If that were the case, and Rudy got to take on the senator from New York, he would feel right at home, no matter where he was stumping for votes.
Blow it out your ass.
I've not met a Democrat since 9/11 who wasn't terrified at the prospect of a Giuliani Presidency or who didn't run a litany of his personal failures my way when mentioned as a nominee.
The reason New York Democrats voted for him is because he was a law-and-order candidate who stood in sharp contrast to the failed Dinkins administration. They decided they'd had enough of living in a third-world city.
Who would have known you're a native New Yorker? Your screaming, uninformed, bogus tough-guy provincialism leaps off the page.
peeing on the sidewalk is not a constitutional guarantee. Its our constitutional guarantees that he wishes to take away, that disturbs straight thinking conservatives.
Giuliani has been hated and loved by Freepers for years now. During the Republican Convention Freepers were screaming high praises for Rudy and "Rudy for President" (you can read the thread if you do a search). But the minute it became possibly a reality they freaked and did a turn-around. I just take it with a grain of salt. And I know as soon as I post something on Rudy the Rudy haters will pop out. But I take it in stride because they are entitled to their opinion and I respect that.
BTW: I'm tougher than Rudy, but that's not saying much. ;-)
[Democrats despise Rudy. They know he'd wipe Hillary off the presidential political landscape forever and deny her the chance of transforming this country into Vichy France.]
The African American community would probably be whipped up to remember how Rudy got black loiterers out of the Port Authority and off of 42nd and 86th street in the early 90s.
I just remembered...black gangs owned 86th street on Manhattan's East Side in 1989...but were nowhere to be found in 1999.
Giuliani literally saved New York City...and a decade before 9-11.
Giuliani had the support of most whites, including liberals at the time when black muggers thought they owned the place.
One of the most famous incidents and strategies, one that would be continually played by the Democrats if he runs for President...was that Rudy had a strategy vs crime that went like this:
It wasn't enough to get minority loiterers (criminals and drug dealers) off of 42nd Street and 86th Street and back into their own neighborhoods.
Giuliani sent white people (undercover cops) into black neighborhoods AT NIGHT...
to just walk around, look lost maybe. Eat an ice cream cone while meandering down the street.
Any jackass that tried to rob them or harrass them for being white...was instantly put face down into the sidewalk and sent to prison.
Very, very soon it became known among black men not to be unfriendly with a white person in their black neighborhoods. I could then walk around myself up in Harlem and not feel threatened.
One night a group of white guys (cops) was walking around when they made the mistake of thinking that a black man was reaching for a gun (it was a cell phone). They fired 40 shots into him. It was a horrible mistake.
But the mistake didn't make the strategy of sending whites into black neighborhoods wrong.
Because the message got across: no violence against whites will be tolerated anywhere, especially if we decide to walk into your neighborhoods.
In the late 90s when I owned an Internet company in NY, I often took black-owned limos to the 125th Street train station to catch trains going north. The 125th Street station is in the very heart of black Harlem.
I never felt in danger because Giuliani had been mayor for 9 years already. The black people seemed to be going about their business and having lives...I never saw anymore drug dealers or dangerous looking "youths"...even in the heart of Harlem.
Ten years before, I would never have even considered getting on or off at the 125th street station of the northern train system.
Bush's Iraq Strategy is almost exactly Giulianis strategy of sending white folks into black neighborhoods to teach the other side that violence is wrong, even in your own neighborhood.
Yes conservatives that are pro life and pro gun 'are entitled to their opinions' in a conservative blog.
Where else would they demand their constitutional rights, over at DU?
I predict that Rudy just may save the collective _______ of the Republican Party in 2006. He is a powerhouse.
Your right...lets make Rudy Mayor of NY again. He reached his pinacle there but considering his views he has no business running in a national election as a republican.
[Yes conservatives that are pro life and pro gun 'are entitled to their opinions' in a conservative blog.
Where else would they demand their constitutional rights, over at DU?]
It is interesting to imply that FR should be like DU, only with different issues.
More of the same Rudy worship
Rudy did not clean up NYC with a hickory axe handle in one hand and a pearl-handled .45 in the other. He hired very smart cops, improved the technology they used, and let them do their job.
And for the record, the city is unmanageable. Those who try to mold it usually get ground into dust.
What, specifically, has Giuliani said about taking away people's guns? I really don't know, because it's not a big concern of mine. You can probably link me to a lot of things, because it seems to be a big concern of yours. Thanks.
[Your right...lets make Rudy Mayor of NY again. He reached his pinacle there]
New York doesn't need him anymore. The police know the drill there now. An entire black generation knows that it is better to dance to rap music than deal drugs down in Hell's Kitchen.
The Middle East needs Giuliani. He would make sure that white Americans hang out in anti-American countries and dare the natives to be impolite.
He really is my kind of guy that way.
He is not going to be taking away anyone's guns except those of white-hating minorities. His socalled views on abortion are obviously not serious: why would a 59 year old guy care about being able to have an abortion? He says what he says so the vast middle of swing voters loves him.
You are talking a huge voting bloc when you are talking about middle class independent suburban white women who have no loyalty to either party. Many of these women are not liberal, but have been brainwashed to think they deserve at least a 90 day term to decide on an abortion.
In the 2004 election, I studied very hard the mind of the swing voter. I could not understand how, after 9-11, a woman could even THINK of voting for Kerry.
The answer was always "I want at least a term limit for abortion".
If Rudy came out talking about term limits, the massive bloc of independent women in the USA would no longer have the cognitive dissonance they've been having about the Republicans after 9-11.
The anti-war crowd would be slaughtered at the polls.
The mayor of NYC really can't stay in a hotel, for a lot of reasons. Who, exactly, would pay for it? How do you restrict access? Etc, etc. etc...
Rudy Giuliani's first move as mayor of New York was to restore law and order. He dropped the crime rate from 2500 murders a year to 699 or so. THAT is leadership. He got 9/11 handeled from the get go. Contrast him with Nagin in New Orleans. He is too liberal socially for my liking, but I think he would be a great CEO for the country. He will appeal to the moderates who like it or not, swing elections. I'd rather see an Allen as well, but his numbers just aren't there. We're still almost 3 years out. Let's see what happens in a year.
I am not a moderate, I am a conservative. Rudy has no appeal to me. I will never support him.
They may fear him, but we are not likely to get yet another Bush. I live in the Florida panhandle and have watched Jeb closely. I always felt we have the wrong Bush in the White House. It's a shame he lost the first election to Chiles, or he might be there now.
Rudy is on record as being anti gun and anti life. Case closed for a conservative blog...and, may I add, for a real red state.
Jeb looks like he might be the man......
But a President has higher and greater issues to provide leadership on . The life issue is not one which can be side-stepped.
No matter what the MSM portrays nor the establishment GOP believes--the overwhelming majority of the Republican Party is Pro-Life, hence, it simply will not happen for Rudy.
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