Posted on 01/31/2007 8:47:58 AM PST by Reagan Man
Rudy Giuliani runs for President, if he runs, from the same place where George Bush still tries to run his war in Iraq - from the rubble and ashes of Sept. 11.
Giuliani doesn't run from any city he still governs, or any state, or even from the U.S. Senate. He runs from a place called Sept. 11, and you would, too.
Giuliani runs, if he runs, from a job to which he was never elected, just appointed. Or perhaps anointed. It's the job of America's Mayor, and it is the best job he is ever going to have, one with which he can have a longer run than a Supreme Court justice if he plays his cards right.
When you are the mythical mayor of America, instead of a declared candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, it means nobody wants to talk about what kind of mayor of New York City you were before Sept. 11, 2001. That is a real good thing for Giuliani.
There are a lot of reasons why Giuliani should quit while he is ahead in some of the polls, but the best is this: the inevitable collision between some of the myths that have grown up around him in the last six years and the facts.
If the other guys in the race just let him run on Sept. 11, let that be the only thing in play - "It really is all people see," one veteran Democrat said last weekend in New Hampshire - then he wins the nomination. Only it doesn't work that way, not in a world where everything is in play, and where the whole process, with each passing election, becomes dumber than Britney Spears.
The only thing Giuliani has run since leaving office is the booming franchise of Giuliani. He has written a huge best seller and made a small fortune giving speeches all over the world. He has run a lucrative consulting business, one that enables him to fly down to a place like Mexico City for a few days, explain to them how they can reduce the crime rate and then he pockets big change.
Only now he sounds as if he is talking himself into making a run for the nomination it is hard to see him ever getting, one that is hard to see him ever getting from the yahoos in his party, even if he is ahead in some polls the way Hillary Clinton is ahead, mostly for being famous.
But Giuliani ought to ask himself how he gets the nomination of a right-wing, red-state party with his positions in favor of stem-cell research and gun control and gay civil marriages and abortion. If he really does make his run, how do those views play on the Dick Cheney news channels, or in the Church of the Religious Right?
Giuliani ought to ask how long he will be on the stump before everybody starts banging away at him with Bernard Kerik, his police commissioner and former business partner, someone Giuliani thought would be a tremendous head of Homeland Security after turning the job down himself. Kerik is another one who wants you to think he cleaned up crime in New York City all by himself, another guy with a badge who thought the law applied to everybody except him.
Kerik will be in play the way Giuliani's second wife, Donna Hanover, and the way she found out about the breakup of her marriage on television, will be in play. So will the whole subject of race relations in the city during Giuliani's time running it. And even the conditions under which the rescue workers worked at Ground Zero.
Did Giuliani find the best in himself during those first days after the planes flew into our buildings? He did. He did his job and, in doing that job, got carried along by the best in the city, as if he was one of the ironworkers who came walking over the bridge from Stuyvesant High School that first afternoon, coming from everywhere, carrying their tools in leather bags, the ones who told the police, "We're here to work."
And when the police asked them how that day, the ironworkers said, "We cut steel, you're gonna need us." And kept walking towards the ruins of the World Trade Center.
When people see Giuliani now, they see that. They see it all, with Giuliani in the foreground. They see the city getting up, slowly at first, then defiantly. The life of the city changed forever that day. So did Giuliani's. No longer was he a man with a complicated life running the world's most complicated city. He was seen as a hero.
America's Mayor. He runs, if he runs, from there. And if it was only that, if how you did that day and in the days to follow, he wins. It isn't the only issue. There are a lot of them with Rudy Giuliani and always were and always will be.
He never ran for the Senate in the end; he never ran for governor. Now the yes-men he's always had around him tell him he can get the nomination for President. It would be easy if it were all Sept. 11, 2001. The problem for Giuliani is Sept. 10.
Please, then, tell us who that conservative standard bearer is who can beat Hillary and Obama? Where is he? What is his name?
I feel the same way about Romney.
Shunning the Boy Scouts and designing and implementing "free" health care for all MA kids was a lot worse than anything McCain or Rudy have done. Romney's nothing but a greasy, flip-flopping suede-shoe boy.
The two REAL candidates, Duncan Hunter and Mike Huckabee, aren't getting the attention from us that they deserve.
I agree with all your comments except the last one inasmuch as he would not be the first choice for conservatives, but I would rather have someone who understands the true nature of terrorists than a broken-down hag who helped get us to where we are in that regard through failure and cowardice or a former drug-using wannabe who will embrace them.
"What do you say?"
I say you should be downgrading the opposition instead of our side.
Good point. He would be wise to make his points about Rudy's negatives without championing some lying leftist media pig.
Yeah, one has to wonder about that. It almost seems like they're afraid he might beat Hillary and Obama.
That speaks well of Rudy.
Giuliani's enemies in NYC have always been a sign of what he was doing right:
Examples:
Yassar Arafat, David Dinkins, Al Sharpton, John Gotti, NY Times, United Nations, ACLU, NY Democrat Party...
I agree with your interpretation of the column. The author is trying to claim Rudy has nothing in his pocket except 9/11 and his work prior to that is abysmal.
We all know that's not the case.
No Democrat other than Lieberman seems close to a clue.
Sure have. Why do you keep defending Rudy Giuliani? You say you don't support him, yet you keep offering up argument after argument favoring Rudy. Strange behavior.
Under Dinkins the city lost several hundred thousand jobs. Reducing taxes was really the only option left to Rudy and the City Council. If they wanted to revive a failing business environment, this was the best way. The city was in dire condition.
>>>>>NYC generates almost 10% of America's GDP.
With NYCity being the financial capitol and with it being the home to WallSteet, that very well could be. But I'm more concerned about it being the abortion capitol of America myself. Rudy cleaning up the city and making it smell better, is no reason to consider him presidential material. Sorry.
>>>>>In other words, you admit that it was not Reagan's fault that he was unable to abolish the federal income tax.
Again, this isn't about Reagan. Reagan cut the federal income tax rate 25% across the board and lowered the top rate from 70% to 28%. No one expected Reagan to abolish the income tax system. My rhetoric was to show that minor tax reductions in the long run meant very little. As the MI pointed out, Rudy`s tax cuts offset the Dinkins tax increases from a few years earlier. New Yorkers received a modest tax savings. All the savings from cutting the welfare rolls, was pumped back into other citywide social welfare progarms. As the MI said: "The scope of government was not reduced at all." NYC is still a liberal city. Run by liberals, for liberals.
>>>>>It is painfully apparent how little you kinow about the workings of NYC.
That is simply not true. I was born and raised in NYC of the 50`s, 60`s and early 70`s. Still in touch with folks and friends who live in the area. On my visits back east I saw the changes within the city and was pleasantly surprised. I had left the city because it became a terrible place to live in the 1970`s. There was absolutely nothing good about NYCity. Many of my friends left for the same reasons. Horrible place to exist. Giuliani made some changes and he made it better. Granted. That doesn't make him presidential material. Sorry.
>>>>>A mantra is not an argument.
That maybe. But Lupica did nail Rudy real good. I enjoyed it.
Frankly, I'm not the one running around making excuses for Rudy Giuliani and defending his liberal record. You are. I'm not the one denouncing the Manhattahn Institute, a friend of Rudy`s, you are. I'm not the one who hates Mike Lupica. You do. So, exactly who is whining and crying? Not me. You're the one who went bonkers.
You know, I had a great time growing up in Queens, Wantaugh and Brooklyn. Wouldn't trade those years for anything. But I can't bring myself to distort the truth about NYCity back then, or today.
For somebody unwilling to hop into beds with whom you perceive as liberal, you sure are cozy with Lupica.
Some call that fickle. Some call it "consorting with the enemy".
Some call it hypocrisy. I know I do.
In other words, if someone hasn't worked for the government lately, they aren't worth spit?
And you're complaining about RUDY having liberal views?
Following your logic, you should vote for Hillary because she has been supported by the government for about thirty years.
So far, the only major candidate I've ruled out is Rudy Giuliani. With Rudy being a liberal, I will not vote for him under any circumstance. Everyone else, all the other candidates are still in play for my vote. Well, except Ron Paul. He's a little too far out for me. LOL
It really came home to me during the Clinton years just how important it is to consider who a man's enemies and friends are when judging his character and mettle.
First off, I didn't see who it was written by. Thought it was an editorial. But that makes no difference. Lupica nailed Rudy. SOLID! LOL It was a good article.
, Rudy is the only one that can win.
And it's in a black box so it has to be true!!!
I don't recall saying a word about conservative women, bless their hearts.
I was talking about the rest.
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