Posted on 11/19/2006 5:37:05 AM PST by Liz
****......he won't be able to get conservatives on his presidential bandwagon. He is pro-choice and favors same-sex marriage, gun control and stem-cell research. He has to be able to swing Middle America. Name redacted Bellerose
**** Who is going to run Giuliani's exploratory committee? I understand Bernie Kerik, Russell Harding, Richard Roberts and a list of assorted cons are available from Giuliani's group of yes men. Maybe his driver will be our next attorney general. That's just what our country needs - more scandals. Whitestone
**** Giuliani was a terrible mayor, and has spent all his days promoting himself. Manhattan
**** Giuliani for president? What is happening to the moral high ground of the Republicans? It sounds like they are becoming the more corrupt and morally disgusting bunch of the two parties, yet they want Giuliani to lead the party of moral conviction and family values? Memphis, Tenn.
**** Giuliani as a presidential candidate is a scary concept. Manhattan
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
We like to criticize liberals for choosing 'high culture' over fighting against Islamofacists because we think that path may lead to our demise. But, apparently we do similar thing. What's the point of pushing for getting a "Christian" president if it results in Hillary (or any other Dim) presidency, which is more likely to surrender to international pressure including pressures from Islamic countries?
We like to say that WoT is a war for our survival: to protect our life-style, civilization, etc. And we look down upon liberals for complaining about 'human rights violation'. The way I see it, we are doing the same thing: we are complaining about 'life of the babies', 'gay marriage', etc.. at the expense of our own (and/or the future generation's) lives.
There was an article up on FR the other day about Giuliani's exploratory committee members...T. Boone Pickens, Tom Hicks, the former heads of the South Carolina and Texas GOPs. Don't see Kerik or Harding or Richard Roberts anywhere on the list.
In 1983, Giuliani was appointed US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he spearheaded the effort to jail drug dealers, fight organized crime, break the web of corruption in government, and prosecute white-collar criminals. Few US Attorneys in history can match his record of 4,152 convictions with only 25 reversals.As Mayor, Rudy Giuliani has returned accountability to City government and improved the quality of life for all New Yorkers. Under his leadership, overall crime is down 57%, murder has been reduced 65%, and New York City - once infamous around the world for its dangerous streets - has been recognized by the F.B.I. as the safest large city in America for the past five years.
When Mayor Giuliani took office, one out of every seven New Yorkers was on welfare. Mayor Giuliani has returned the work ethic to the center of City life by implementing the largest and most successful welfare-to-work initiative in the country, cutting welfare rolls in half while moving over 640,000 individuals from dependency on the government to the dignity of self-sufficiency.
Giuliani has enacted a record of over $2.5 billion in tax reductions - including the commercial rent tax, personal income tax, the hotel occupancy tax, and the sales tax on clothing for purchases up to $110 dollars.
In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars have been returned to the private sector as a result of the Mayor's aggressive campaign to root out organized crime's influence over the Fulton Fish Market, the private garbage hauling industry, and wholesale food markets throughout the City.
These reforms, combined with the fiscal discipline which enabled the Mayor to turn an inherited $2.3 billion dollar budget deficit into a multi-billion dollar surplus, have led the City to an era of broad-based growth with a record 450,000 new private sector jobs created in the past seven years. As news of the City's resurgence has spread around the nation and the world, tourism has grown to record levels.
When fighting against Rudy, the Rudy-haters can't afford to be constrained by the truth.
Romney has many faces. One day the Pro-life Mormon, the next day the defender of a woman's right to choose..or is it the other way around?
And a gun grabber.
"Just take a look at the link to see what Haley is going to be facing. "
Oh well.
It seems clear Rudy Giuliani is going to run for president. What isn't clear is whether he has any chance of winning the Republican nomination. Some, like RCP's own Ryan Sager, have been pointing to early horse race polls and other anecdotal evidence, assiduously trying to deconstruct the conventional wisdom that says Giuliani's positions on social issues will doom him with conservative base voters. That debate, however, isn't likely to be settled any time soon, and the truth of the matter is that it's Giuliani's position on other issues that may end up disqualifying him with many Republicans.
Set aside for the moment Rudy's well-known liberal views on "God, gays, and guns" and the messy details of his personal life. Let's look at how he stacks up against his most direct rival, Senator John McCain, on three of the most important issues to Republican primary voters.
Immigration
While McCain has taken heat for his support of comprehensive immigration reform, Rudy is every bit as pro-immigration as McCain - if not more so. On the O'Reilly Factor last week Giuliani argued for a "practical approach" to immigration and cited his efforts as Mayor of New York City to "regularize" illegal immigrants by providing them with access to city services like public education to "make their lives reasonable." Giuliani did say that "a tremendous amount of money should be put into the physical security" needed to stop the flow of illegal immigrants coming across the border, but his overall position on immigration is essentially indistinguishable from McCain's.
The First Amendment
Many conservatives despise McCain for his leading role in passing campaign-finance reform, which they see as an abomination of the First Amendment. But Giuliani is an ardent supporter of campaign finance reform as well. As he was contemplating a run for the Senate in 2000, Giuliani told Wolf Blitzer that he was a "very, very strong supporter of Campaign Finance Reform," adding that he'd been "a very strong supporter of McCain-Feingold for a long, long time now."
Rudy's support for McCain-Feingold is only part of the reason free speech lawyer Floyd Abrams once characterized Giuliani as "deeply contemptuous of the First Amendment." For example, in 1997, Giuliani went to court to try and force New York Magazine to take down an ad campaign appearing on city buses that ribbed him by proclaiming that the magazine was "probably the only good thing in New York that Rudy hasn't taken credit for." Rudy's court challenge against the magazine failed.
In 1999, Giuliani made headlines by trying to cut off public funding for the Brooklyn Museum of Art after an exhibit featured a portrait of the Virgin Mary decorated with elephant dung. Giuliani was again rebuffed in court on First Amendment grounds, but he subsequently formed a "decency commission" to issue a set of recommended standards for local museums that receive city money.
Incidentally, while this last example may be the sort of free speech impingement that scores points with religious conservatives, it nevertheless points out a pattern of behavior that makes it very hard to argue that Rudy somehow has a greater reverence for the First Amendment than McCain. It should also make pure free speech libertarians like Sager blush with embarrassment for constantly deriding McCain over First Amendment issues while heaping unqualified praise on Giuliani.
Judges
Conservatives often cite McCain's leadership role in the Gang of 14 as one of the reasons they find him objectionable. Indeed, nominating solidly conservative judges is among one of the most dearly held values of conservative Republicans. We can only speculate as to how Giuliani would have voted were he in the Senate, or whom he would nominate as president. But he's given no indication that he would be any better than McCain on the issue of judges, and you could argue quite convincingly that Giuliani's background and ideological make up would lead him to be much less stringent (and therefore in the eyes of conservatives, much worse) in appointing strict conservative judges to the bench.
Likewise, on the issues of controlling government spending or the War in Iraq and the Global War on Terror, conservatives would be hard pressed to come up with a line of reasoning that Giuliani would somehow be superior to McCain. Only on tax policy, where McCain originally sided with Senate Democrats in opposing the Bush tax cuts (he's since reversed himself to vote in support of making them permanent) could one stretch to make the argument that Rudy is more in line with the Republican base than McCain.
To summarize, as a matter of policy on major issue after major issue, Giuliani has all the same drawbacks with conservative voters that John McCain has, in addition to carrying the baggage of problematic liberal views on abortion, gay rights, and the Second Amendment. On paper, then, it's hard to see any compelling reason for conservatives to vote for Rudy over John McCain, though they'll be confronted with a laundry list of reasons to vote against him.
In the end, Giuliani's appeal boils down to two things - both of which it should be said are significant and not to be underestimated. The first is that he is strikingly charismatic and flat out likeable. Where McCain often rubs conservatives the wrong way with a sanctimonious, holier-than-thou attitude, Giuliani comes across as a very attractive, approachable, down-to-earth personality. In the contest of who you'd rather have a beer with, Giuliani would win in a landslide over McCain - and the rest of the GOP field.
Giuliani's other major asset is that he doesn't have a voting record. The contrast between Giuliani and McCain is a classic example of why Senators have trouble becoming president. McCain has been forced to go on record, make choices and take leadership positions on the most significant and contentious issues of the day. Giuliani, on the other hand, has been able to fly more or less under the radar on those same issues, taking positions very similar - if not identical - to McCain without bearing anywhere near the same level of scrutiny or anger from conservatives. That won't last forever.
For nearly five years Giuliani has enjoyed near mythical status as the embodiment of American leadership and courage in response to September 11. Giuliani's star is etched in the country's psyche as deeply as any in modern history, and it will carry him a long way down the path to becoming president - but not all the way.
Eventually Giuliani will have to climb down off the pedestal we've placed him on, go to Rotary Club meetings in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, shake hands and tell conservative Republican voters what he stands for beyond just being a symbol of resolve in the midst of a national crisis that happened half a decade ago. We'll have to wait and see whether Rudy can convince conservatives that he shares enough of their values and philosophy to win their votes. At this early stage, all I can say is that it's going to be a lot tougher than some people think.
Tom Bevan is the co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics. Email: mailto:%20tom@realclearpolitics.com
Rudy, liberal, petty tyrant, anti-first amendment and very much like insane McCain.
Rudy’s Bernie Weekend by Ben Smith
New York Observer
This column ran on page 17 in the 12/20/2004 edition of The New York Observer.
Three years and three months is a long time to keep your sainthood if you’re still among the living, so give Rudy Giuliani credit: He had a good run.But mark the date: On Dec. 11, 2004, in a splash of tabloid headlines, history returned to the man formerly known as "America’s Mayor." His attempt to install his former driver and rough-edged alter ego as the Secretary of Homeland Security backfired, his new Republican friends threw him overboard and, returning to New York, he found the city he’d once tamed turning on him, its cowed press militant and his old enemies—remember when Rudy had enemies?—gloating on television.
--SNIP--
You may reach Ben Smith via email at: bensmith@observer.com.
SOURCE http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage1.asp
Is that article really from 2004? Got anything newer?
Well I look at it this way, why go Clinton lite, when one most likely can vote for Clinton heavy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do Bernard Kerik and Michael Chertoff have in common?
Both have proven to be disastrous choices to head the Department of Homeland Security. But that's not the only thing they share. Both were enthusiastically championed for this all-important post by Rudolph Giuliani.
As it happens, Giuliani was largely responsible for putting each man on the political map and helping launch their careers. Kerik was once Giuliani's driver. Giuliani subsequently made him his city corrections chief and, eventually, his top cop. Kerik's 2004 nomination as Homeland Security chief was aggressively pushed by Giuliani, which helped persuade Bush to take a flyer on nominating him. We all remember how well that turned out. Kerik's nomination promptly imploded after a host of ethical and financial problems surfaced, and Giuliani subsequently had to apologize to the president.
You're the one that's uninformed. Ben Franklin has some advice for you.
The allegations are that while the grifters from Hope were selling secrets to the PLA for campaign cash Barbour was shaking down the KMT on Taiwan for same.
Difference seems to be that BJ Bill & Company were accused of selling secrets and Barbour of peddling influence.
You think what you like. If you elect Rudy, you have a socialist dimocrat government anyway. His beliefs are the same as dimocrats. He governs the same way. He is a RINO. He is not a conservative. I do not belong to any party. I vote people. Those with the convictions that I have. He has none. I do not support homosexuals, their marriage, and all that Rudy stands for. McScreams is a nut case. You go ahead and vote for whom ever you desire. Your thinking line of voting for Rudy is the same as voting for a liberal dimocrat.
I am waiting (but not holding my breath) for more examples of Rudy's "great leadership" during 9/11 and its aftermath.
Your right. Maybe MCain/Brownback? McCain pissed off some of evangelicals...so his Rightist Veep would also have to be "Christian freindly". Brownback has not deviated from those issues. Whatever the case, the WHOLE party needs to be on board.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.