Posted on 04/06/2006 10:49:22 PM PDT by neverdem
After four years of enjoying private life, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is taking several steps that could lay the groundwork for a presidential bid, strengthening alliances with Republicans nationwide and especially with conservative leaders of the party.
Mr. Giuliani's advisers say he will decide around the end of the year whether to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2008.
It is a decision that will not be made easily: Mr. Giuliani believes that his support for abortion rights, gay rights and gun control would make winning the nomination difficult, according to several friends and former City Hall aides. Some of those people, who were granted anonymity to describe conversations with the former mayor, say they have told him not to give up his comfortable new way of life for a campaign that might end in failure.
Yet Mr. Giuliani remains popular across the Republican spectrum because of his leadership during 9/11 — a role that many Americans were reminded of yesterday when he testified at the death penalty trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to be tried in an American courtroom in connection with the attacks of Sept. 11.
Mr. Giuliani's advisers are only now starting to talk openly about the outlines of a possible national bid, but they say he could enter the race at the start of 2007, or even later, and still assemble a team and raise tens of millions of dollars in a relatively short time.
--snip--
Changing his positions would be craven, his advisers said; what Mr. Giuliani can do is underscore that he is a conservative in many ways, and a loyal party member, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Giuliani should save his money and go write another book about 911, this time tell the truth.
Any conservative leader worth his salt should say to Rudy, "Change you stances on these subjects or be gone!"
What flies for conservative in New York, doesn't make it in flyover country.
Ya think?
"fag lover"? Didn't know he smoked cigs?
Thought he smoke cigars.
smoke=smoked, sorry.
Was it a govt. conspiracy? /sarcasm
If he runs i'm gonna vote for him the primary. /puts on flame suit
That's not true. He was only a conservative in the fiscal sense, insisting on welfare reform, budget restraint and tax cuts, IIRC. However, like many statists, fees and fines were increased, but that's nothing new for any pol.
I have to say, after years of thinking I'd never consider supporting Giuliani for president - for all the reasons already discussed - I'm thinking about it. If he were to come out and pledge to nominate originalists to the Supreme Court, and maybe pick Ken Blackwell as his running mate, I would consider him.
Of course someone better may emerge, too. I'll really enjoy living in Iowa about that time.
If Rudi is up against Hillary... Who will you vote for?
I was in NYC right after the '94 elections, and many people were fully expecting after Giuliani's embarrassing endorsement of Cuomo blowing up in his face and Pataki's refusal to even speak to Rudy after his victory that Rudy was going to call a press conference and announce he was switching to the Democrat party.
He has certainly been working hard recently to campaign for Republicans in recent years (obviously, we know why he is), but ideologically, he really is almost indistinguishable from a liberal Democrat (surely he might switch some of his positions, but as even his advisors would tell him, it would look craven and opportunistic). His sole accomplishment, of course, being his law & order stance that reduced crime in NYC to pre-1960s levels, and he should be applauded for that, but on almost everything else, he is simply on the wrong side.
If he were to be within reach of nomination for President, there would be a civil war erupting in the party that would doom his chances for the general beyond repair. I'd say 50% of the party would simply refuse to vote for him, and 2008 would be the worst disaster since Goldwater in '64.
1. I know for 100% clarity that Hillary would appoint liberal judges, she voted against Alito and Roberts.
2. Rudy has been loyal to the President, campaigning for him and even going on talk shows after the State of the Union.
3. Rudy is NOT McCain
4. Rudy can easily beat Hillary.
Brilliant
Immigration politics have similarly harmed New York. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city’s sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to “terrorize people.” Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history.
DICK MORRIS - "Suddenly it's a race" (Spencer vs. Hillary)
FReepmail me if you want on or off my New York ping list.
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