Rudy Hits the Campaign Trail - Is Giuliani vicious enough to win the Republican nomination?

www.slate.com ^ | Aug. 31, 2006 | John Dickerson

[neverdem]

With the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaching, I thought it would be a good idea to check up on Rudy Giuliani. He is the last remaining political action figure from that tragedy, having left office at the top of his game, before anything like the Iraq war could tarnish him. After years of private-sector buck-raking, the mayor is back in campaign mode, traveling across the country to help Republican candidates and thinking about running for president.

But is he ready for the brutality of a presidential race? This would be the week for him to practice savaging Democrats. The GOP effort to caricature Iraq war opponents has become both more coordinated and more creative. Would the nation's mayor talk about appeasing terrorists as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld did? Or would he use Vice President Cheney's line about self-defeating pessimism? Would he at least dish out a little "cut and run?"

I drove Wednesday night through rush hour to see Giuliani in Potomac, Md., a wealthy Washington suburb and sanctuary for bad architecture. He was visiting a local restaurant with Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who's running for Senate. Steele recently has been on the defensive about critical remarks he made about the Iraq war and Republican Congress. You couldn't tell that from the candidate's raucous supporters. (The event was hosted by the Women of Steele, an organization that sounds dangerously like a USW pinup calendar.) The cell phones and Treos went up like periscopes to photograph the two men as they struggled to wade through the packed room.

[neverdem]

The Mayor Who Would Be President [Giuliani]

Republican voters who currently prefer Rudy Giuliani to John McCain because of the latter’s well-known maverick streak may not know that Mayor Giuliani endorsed Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994.

Forget all of his liberal bona fides. That bit of treachery won't be forgotten.

[A CA Guy]

If any other conservative competitive person is going for it, they better get their hat in the ring and work their butt off NOW!

[yoe]

It's a little too early to pick however, Giuliani doesn't suffer fools...but he is a politician.............

[Uriah_lost]

The "one issue voters" as some like to call us are mostly on the other side of those issues from Rudy. From abortion, to gun rights, to immigration, he is unpalatable to too large a segment of the Republican party. He and McCain are DOA as presidential candidates. I actually wish that we would just make the conscious decision to ignore them and waste no more time or bytes on them.

[oceanview]

by who? who cares about that?

[rhombus]

I actually wish that we would just make the conscious decision to ignore them and waste no more time or bytes on them.

Well you didn't have to post if that's how you really feel about it.

[bybybill]

Who is going to be the next President?

[Jim Noble]

but he is a politician.............

Who is the last politician you know who ran for office promising to do something, and then did it?

Other than Rudy, I mean.

[Uriah_lost]

Aren't you the clever little fella!

[Uriah_lost]

Neither of them....I'll wager dollars to donuts.

[gedeon3]

I am not voting for him. I don't know how many articles endorsing him, I have seen in freerepublic in the last 3 weeks; it won't work.

[Spiff]

The Real Rudy Giuliani:

• Pro-abortion - He even opposes banning partial birth murder.
• Anti-2nd Amendment - supports gun grabbing legislation including the Brady Bill and the Assault Weapon Ban
• Pro-big government - amassed unprecedented debt as Mayor of NYC
• Pro-radical gay agenda
  

  - Attended and marched in every gay pride parade in NYC while mayor (even one in 1992 that included a NAMBLA contingent of pedophile activists)
  - Attends and supports many functions and fund-raisers held by radical gay organizations (even did a cross dressing act at Pride Agenda fund-raiser)
  - Openly opposes Constitutional Amendment to protect tradition marriage which is supported by President Bush and the Republican Party Platform.
  - Supported "domestic partner" and "civil union" bills in City Council while mayor of NYC.
  - Submitted Gay "Domestic-Partner" Rights Bill to City Council giving gay and lesbian couples the same benefits reserved for married couples.
  - Said, "I'm proud of it" when referring to the gay "domestic partner" bill he submitted. Said, "National Republicans can lump it if they don't like this new domestic-partners bill...I think it puts New York City ahead of other places in the country."
  - Has received awards from several radical gay agenda organizations who support gay marriage for his support of their cause. Is considered a "champion" of gay "rights."
  - Lived with a gay "married" couple in Manhattan when he moved out of Gracie Mansion during his second divorce.
  - Said that homosexuality is "good and normal"
  

• Pro-illegal immigration - said no one in New York City is going to assist the federal government with the enforcement of immigration law, sued Feds in 1997 to be able to ignore immigration law, lost in court, vowed to ignore law anyway
• Endorses liberal Democrat candidates over Republicans - endorsed liberal Dem Mario Cuomo over Republican George Pataki in NY Governor's race
• Ran for NYC Mayor in 1994 on Liberal Party ticket. Appointed Liberal Party State Chair to a Deputy Mayor position. Endorsed 3 times by the Liberal Party for his liberal views.
• Holds many other liberal views
• Republican In Name Only - opposes many major planks of the GOP Platform

Read more about Giuliani's liberal positions here and here.

Some people want Republicans to ignore his liberalism on almost every issue and, as a distraction, they try to pretend that Rudy is fiscally conservative. Again, his record shows that he isn't fiscally conservative either:

According to an article in The Nation from 2002:

It's now apparent that Giuliani purchased the city's good times partially with borrowed money and left his successor, Mike Bloomberg, holding a bag of debt. New York City went from a $3 billion budget surplus in 1998 to a $4.5 billion deficit after Giuliani left office. This mismanagement of prosperity is a big part of his legacy. Giuliani left the city's finances in a mess...

Here are some things Giuliani did as Mayor that were NOT anywhere near being fiscally conservative:

• New York City went from a $3 billion budget surplus in 1998 to a $4.5 billion deficit after Giuliani left office.
  
• Added 25,000 government employees patronage hires to the city's payroll after promising to cut the work force.
  
• Giuliani's borrowing practices increased the city's debt burden by 50 percent.
  
• Partly because of Giuliani, New York City is now the biggest debtor in the nation outside of the federal government with $42 billion in loans outstanding.
  

According to the article from The Nation:

During the 1960s Giuliani was a self-described "Robert Kennedy Democrat." He identified with RFK as a liberal Catholic prosecutor. He volunteered for RFK's 1968 presidential campaign while he was a student at NYU Law School. Giuliani also voted for George McGovern in 1972. During the liberal 1960s, he was a liberal.

But in 1975 Giuliani switched his party registration from Democrat to Independent when he got a job in Gerald Ford's Justice Department, according to his mentor Harold "Ace" Tyler.

On December 8, 1980, Giuliani changed his registration from Independent to Republican. This was one month after Ronald Reagan's election, and just as he was applying for a top job in the Justice Department.

So, to sum that up:

• Liberal Democrat until 1975
• Worked as volunteer for Democrat Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign.
• Voted for liberal George McGovern.
• Liberal Independent from 1975-1980.
• Did not register as a Republican until 1980 and only AFTER Ronald Reagan was elected and because he was applying for a top job in the administration.

He's a liberal. He's not even in the same building as conservative. He's only a Republican because...and this comes from his own mother, Helen Giuliani:

"He only became a Republican after he began to get all these jobs from them. He's definitely not a conservative Republican. He thinks he is, but he isn't..."

And as John Hawkins put it in an excellent article in Human Events:

Despite all of his charisma and the wonderful leadership he showed after 9/11, Rudy Giuliani is not a Reagan Republican. To the contrary, Giuliani is another Christie Todd Whitman, another Arlen Specter, another Olympia Snowe. He's a throwback to the "bad old days" before Reagan, when the GOP was run by moderate Country Club Republicans who considered conservatives to be extremists. Trying to revive that failed strategy again is likely to lead to a Democratic President in 2008 and numerous setbacks for the Republican Party.

[bilhosty]

i might support hime. But, he has to backd own from open immigration and gay marrriage and promise to support conservative judges. He served as Mayor of New york city so he had no alternative but to take some liberal positions. Where he came through was on sconservative issue slike crime. It looks to me like it is going to come down to Romney, McCain or Giuliani. If Giuliani does not change some of his stripes then I guess it will be Romney.

[kerryusama04]

before anything like the Iraq war could tarnish him.

I was not aware that Mayors of NYC had anything to do with the Iraq war. Did it tarnish Bloomberg?

If Rudy and McCain are all we have, then what do we do? I say vote Dem as long as it isn't Hillary, while maintaining our majorities in the Congress. That might actually make the Republicans act like, well, Republicans.

[SmoothTalker]

Thank you. That expresses my thoughts on him well. I won't vote for him.

[the invisib1e hand]

A spoiler extraordinaire if nothing else.

Is he vicious enough? He's more: He's smart enough. And he's got momentum.

[cayuga]

I stopped contributing to the RNC when Republicans started talking about Rudy being presidential material.

Anti-gun, pro-choice, pro-tax.....no thank you. I choose not to a frog in the pot.

[eleni121]

Not planning to vote for Giuliani either.


George Allen gets my vote.

[TimesDomain]

If any other conservative (???) competitive person ...

I will back a real conservative.

[bybybill]

My question was who do you think will be Pres? Just curious