It's bad news no matter how you spin it (Rudy lost his most sensitive campaign docs)

New York Daily News ^ | 3 January 2007 | BEN SMITH and DAVID SALTONSTALL

[Spiff]

It's bad news no matter how you spin it

BY BEN SMITH and DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Having your presidential playbook leaked to the press is bad enough.

But when Rudy Giuliani's aides tried to pin the leak on a thieving political rival, that just compounded the screwup, experts said yesterday, because the real blame belongs to the former mayor.

"Sometimes things do get lost by airline companies, but that's all the more reason not to carry around a hard copy," one veteran campaigner said. "Or if you are carrying around a hard copy, you need to handcuff the briefcase to your wrist."

Giuliani aides now allege that the 140-page tome was pilfered by an unnamed airport baggage handler, then photocopied by an alleged dirty campaign trickster.

The plan sets out a timeline that includes Giuliani's previously undisclosed goal of raising $100 million in 2007 and some of the big givers he hopes will back a White House bid.

[Note to self. Send articles like this and a note about what an awful gamble it would be now to donate to liberal Rudy to everyone on that list of big donors. -spiff]

The hefty target - and the fact that it has now been disclosed - had political experts snickering about the mammoth expectations Giuliani has suddenly set for himself.

"Now if he's not on track to raise $100 million by the end of the year, you can imagine what the headlines will be," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "It'll be, 'Rudy's Falling Short!'"

Aides to some of Giuliani's Republican primary rivals, meanwhile, could barely contain their glee at the raft of information first disclosed by the Daily News, which obtained a copy from a source sympathetic to a rival campaign.

John Weaver, a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, said the Arizona Republican was "honored" that so many of the big givers identified in the Giuliani dossier had since signed on to McCain's exploratory bid. But he predicted the document would have little impact on the race.

"We have enough work implementing our plan without wasting time chuckling over things like that," Weaver told The News.

"Well, maybe time for one chuckle, but that's it."

Some of Giuliani's most avid supporters did their best to take the flub in stride, arguing that voters are more interested in issues and substance than the intricacies of campaign battle plans.

"There is no perfect campaign," said Barry Wynn, a former head of South Carolina's Republican Party and an early backer of Giuliani. "You are going to have three or four good days and one or two bad days every week, and it's how you get through it that matters to the public."

Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton - another likely 2008 contender for the White House - declined to comment on Giuliani's latest headache.

[Spiff]

Probably the most sensitive document to his campaign gets lost/stolen/leaked/whatever and he's busy making silly excuses and changing the story as many times as he's changed wives (but not as many times as he's dressed in drag at radical gay group fundraisers). And he wants to be THE national security candidate!!? I mean the guy runs a security company with multi-million dollar contracts and he can't secure his own sensitive documents and didn't properly vett his own staff? This incident strains his credibility on security issues. Well, this and the whole Bernie Kerik thing.

[Spiff]

Ping

[dfwgator]

He's toast.

[rodguy911]

Sorry ace, but you got beat up on the other thread and the same thing will happen again.

[Spiff]

Sorry ace, but you got beat up on the other thread and the same thing will happen again.

I didn't get beat up anywhere at all. I don't know what you're talking about.

[rodguy911]

Yeah right! Catch you later it's time for Rush.

[fhlh]

I wonder if people remember that Reagan was divorced/remarried?
Don't see any grief about that lil nugget on FR...

[Tanniker Smith]

I wonder if people remember that Reagan was divorced/remarried?

How can I forget? Liberals bring it up all the time when they want to talk about "'family values'" (They add the quotes, and I'm quoting them.) Reagan, Rudy, Newt, etc. And then, somehow, magically, Bill Clinton is an honorable family man. (It is to gag.)

TS

[roses of sharon]

It has become quite a fun game to watch and keep track of anonymous "freepers", on this forum, smear and defeat every Republican and Conservative in office, running, and thinking about running.

We should do the same on their liberal forums, lol.

[ExpandNATO]

I wonder if people remember that Reagan was divorced/remarried? Don't see any grief about that lil nugget on FR...

Why? Reagan did not get divorced by his choice. Thanks to the strain communist harrassment put on his first marriage, his first wife ran off with her costar in a movie. She filed for divorce, not him.

[inkling]

There was nothing at all damning about the document. A lot of fluff about nothing. I do hope they catch the turncoat GOPer, though. I'm thinking it's from either the Romney or McCain campaign since they are the ones who would benefit by knocking Rudy out early.

[piytar]

We should do the same on their liberal forums, lol.

We can't. Most liberal forums will boot anyone who does not drink the Kool-Aid and toe the lib party line. Probably because they are afraid of actually debating ideas.

Here, any libscum can post, too. Again, most are afraid of a true debate of ideas, so they pretend to be consevatives, but they're usually pretty transparent. They don't get booted. Instead, their inane feeling-based cognitively dissonant "positions" just get shredded, which I think is far more effective.

BTW, I still hadn't really made up my mind about Rudy. Don't think I'll have to -- this mess is probably going to take him out of serious contention for the nomination. What a screw-up...

[Brilliant]

"the real blame belongs to the former mayor"



Someone steals from you and it's your fault? Sounds like something a liberal rag would say, though.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Rudy a conservative? When?

[Spiff]

I wonder if people remember that Reagan was divorced/remarried? Don't see any grief about that lil nugget on FR...

Rudy is a serial adulterer. Married his second cousin. Shacked up with his mistress in Gracie Mansion - the Mayor's official residence. Etcetera. Etcetera. There's no valid comparison. Besides - the primary is not between liberal Rudy and Ronald Reagan.

It's ridiculous how people bring up conservative Ronald Reagan's imperfections to defend liberal Giuliani's offensive behavior. Sounds just like the Dems defending Clinton oval office activities.

Liberal Giuliani's own campaign admits, in the lost documents, that Rudy's wandering weenie is a "problem" that must be overcome to get him elected. That may cause him to take the big donors' money but then withdraw from the race. Are you carrying the liberals' water for them now? Is there anything that could be uncovered about liberal Rudy's sordid history that would disqualify him, in your eyes, from being a candidate that conservatives should vote for? Are there any views and positions that he could hold (aside from his support for the radical gay agends, being pro-partial birth abortion, being a gun grabber, being a liberal on just about every issue under the sun) that would disqualify him?

[Spiff]

I'm thinking it's from either the Romney or McCain campaign since they are the ones who would benefit by knocking Rudy out early.

We (conservatives) would ALL benefit by knocking Rudy out early.

[roses of sharon]

If it wasn't this, it would be something else, as with all of our candidates.

FR's freepers will dump them at the slightest hint of "bad press".

No need to wonder why we have so very few Conservative candidates when they know their base is weak at heart.

[Cicero]

I take it you don't like Giuliani.

The NY Daily News is a wholly owned subsidiary of bill & hillary clinton. They fear Giuliani as a candidate and are desperately using innuendo to try to make him look bad.

But where's the beef?

It's his fault that airport workers stole something out of his baggage? Maybe it was careless, but that doesn't excuse Democrat operators from stealing it, or the Daily News from desperately trying to make propaganda out of stolen goods.

Exactly what was so damaging about these secret plans? I read yesterday's report as well as this one, and other than being annoying to have your fund raising plans known by the enemy, I fail to see anything damaging about it.

Big deal. Giuliani is raising money for a presidential campaign. What a surprise.

[bilhosty]

"I wonder if people remember that Reagan was divorced/remarried?
Don't see any grief about that lil nugget on FR..."

Not only was Reagan divorced and remarried. But, Old Hickory had quite a scandal in his campaign. The opposition talked abut putting a "a whore and an adulterer in the white house." also Grover Cleveland had his own." I think people will judge the candidates on there own merits. While, the Rudy marital history is a liability there is much to be commended in Rudy.

[HAL9000]

Reminds me of - George F. Will: Briefing Book Baloney