Posted on 02/11/2007 10:27:49 PM PST by FairOpinion
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, still basking in his can-do post-Sept. 11 image, got a rousing welcome yesterday from Republican activists searching for a presidential candidate who can win in California.
No Republican presidential candidate has carried California since the elder George Bush did in 1988, and no one has even run a competitive race in the increasingly Democratic-leaning state since then.
Republicans are hopeful they have prospects in the large 2008 field who can reverse the trend by combining liberal and conservative stands that has proven so successful for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“The popularity of the governor shows that you can take the positions that he holds and win in California,” said Duf Sundheim, outgoing Republican state chairman. “I think Giuliani has the same opportunity.”
As for Giuliani, backers say his record on reducing crime and taxes in New York should give conservatives plenty to like. He was introduced to the convention yesterday by businessman Bill Simon, the 2002 Republican nominee for California governor who once worked under Giuliani in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York.
Simon said that as mayor, Giuliani cut taxes 23 times and reduced the city's murder rate by 67 percent. “That is a record that as a conservative Republican, I can heartily endorse,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
Their ping list probably makes up the 22 people here who voted for hillary clinton in the lastest FReeper poll.
Rudy is far more Conservative than you believe. You do need to remove your blinders.
"Fiscal conservatism is real conservatism.
And the world does not revolve around you."
You sound so young. lol
Social conservatism, 2nd amendment rights, securing our borders is also real conservatism, and Rudy is none of these.
Rudy is not such a great fiscal conservative, either, but he's a smooth talker, and can convince the masses.
Rudy left NYCity with a $2.0 billion deficit and a $42-billion debt.
"Rudy is far more Conservative than you believe. You do need to remove your blinders."
How so?
Secondly, yes, some Hollyweirdos may just close their purse strings; it has been known to happen; not all of them should she get the nod, but Hill and Bill are two very different people.
Then Ronald Reagan wasn't "really a Republican" either. He carried a bunch of those traditionally blue states back in the day. Seemed to do pretty well for us as POTUS.
(And yeah, Reagan flip-flopped on abortion too, and was (gasp) divorced).
I'll take a win for Guiliani (or any other Republican candidate) in California. A Republican wins in California -- it's a landslide. Republicans who win with a landslide = coat tails.
Ahh... I miss the Reagan days when he wiped the floor with that loser Mondale.
How would you like to read some FACTS about him?
Rudy Giuliani: Supply-Sider-in-Chief
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1782806/posts
Logic and the whole separation of powers thing can be lost in the hysteria of certain perceived RINO-candidate's positions.
I love the posts saying that winning California is somehow a bad thing when in actuality, it would mean that Hitlery's clock would be cleaned.
Ron Paul is a KOOK Libertarian, who couldn't win a single election, until he ran as a GOPer. He's about as useful to the GOP, as Lincoln Chaffe was........which is to say, helpful with numbers of bodies, but not when it comes to votes.
From the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research:
"Even with the tax cuts of the last several years, New York remains by far the most heavily taxed big city in the country."
TAXES: Giuliani did cut the marginal city income tax rates, reducing taxes by some $2.0-billion from 1996-2001, but those cuts only offset the $1.8-billion increase in city income tax rates put in place by Mayor Dinkins a few years earlier. In the end, income taxes were actually cut by a modest $200-million. Freezing the 12.5% surcharge on high wage earners was good, but Giuliani didn't attempt to abolish that surcharge. Nor did Giuliani attempt to make serious permanent changes to the city income tax code. The primary reason Rudy and the City Council agreed to cut taxes, was to make NYCity more appealing to new businesses thinking about locating/relocating to the Big Apple. A smart move, however, Rudy left office with NYCity with some of the highest income taxes, property taxes and utility rates in the entire nation.
GOVT SPENDING: From 1997 to 2001, spending under Giuliani went up 32%. More then double the rate of inflation. Rudy left NYCity with a $2.0 billion deficit and an enlarged $42-billion debt total. Second largest debt after the federal government. Giuliani also added 15,000 new teachers to the city employment rolls. Increasing the membership of two major liberal organizations, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).
"The scope of government was not reduced at all. The mayor abandoned his most visible initiative in this sphere—the proposed sale of the city hospital system—after a struggle with the unions and defeats in the courts. He did cut costs in social services; even before the new federal welfare reforms took effect in 1997, the city had begun to significantly reduce caseloads. But money saved on social services has only helped to subsidize big increases in other categories. Today the array of social services sponsored and partially funded by the city—from day care to virtually guaranteed housing—is as wide as ever.
"In the final analysis, Mayor Giuliani sought to make the city deliver services more efficiently—not to make the city deliver fewer services. Gains in efficiency were offset, however, by a spike in the costs of outsourced contracts (see point 2 below). Thus, in two areas where inroads might have been made, the city instead failed to reduce spending."
"1. Personnel Increases. In 1995–96, the city entered into a series of collective bargaining agreements with its public-employee unions. In addition to granting pay increases that ended up roughly equaling inflation, the city promised not to lay off any workers for the life of the contracts. These agreements were expected to add $2.2 billion to the budget by fiscal 2001. But that estimate didn’t reckon with renewed growth in the number of city employees. After dipping in Giuliani’s first two years, the full-time headcount rose from 235,069, in June 1996 to over 253,000 by November 2000. Thanks largely to this growth in the workforce, the total increase in personnel service costs since 1995 has been $4 billion.
2. "Outsourced Services. The failure to shrink the scope of city government made it all the more imperative that Mayor Giuliani vastly increase its efficiency. In the attempt to increase productivity, the mayor farmed out some city services to private contractors. But as the number of outsourced contracts doubled under Giuliani, contractual expenses also nearly doubled—from $3 billion to $5.8 billion. While it may be argued that the city saved money by outsourcing these services, the net savings turned out to be marginal at best. In practice, outsourcing proved to be more of a bargaining chip in negotiations with unions than a serious means of pruning expenses."
Hard evidence that Rudy Giuliani was NO fiscal conservative. Another run-of-the-mill NYCity liberal.
A lot of these people's objective is to LOSE and hand victory to the Democrats, while bashing "RINO"s, but never criticizing Democrats.
Not "everyone"; I never said that Allen was a sure bet.
Rudy also left NYC with a hole in the ground where the WTC once stood. That 9-11 thing kinda threw a monkey wrench into his last budget, but let's just gloss over that.
Do you think they'll vote for Hillary instead?
Well, you believe in the guy, and you're very polite about it. We disagree, but I guess that's part of the process. Sorry if I came off as rude.
First fight, then fiddle.
I actually lived in Michigan for a number of years. I don't disagree that the people of the state are traditional, but I also don't remember them electing Santorum-style Republicans, which is the way your post seems to read. The average elected Republican in Michigan was more like Gov. Engler, a pro-business fiscal conservative who was also pro-life, pro-gun, etc, but never really talked about it much, just signed all the right laws.
If Rudy promises no new federal gun laws and conservative judges, and runs on fiscal issues and foreign policy, he seems an awfully lot like the type of Republican who wins in Michigan to me.
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