GOP Hopes to Catch a Wave in California

The Politico ^ | February 14, 2007 | Mike Allen

[Peach]

During a swing through Northern California this week that included a close encounter with a mechanical milker, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani snitched a bite of blackened chicken quesadilla off a woman's plate at Mimi's Diner in Fresno.

In Southern California next week, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will appear in the Los Angeles area with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to promote his climate-change policies and talk about how they can be taken national.

Both stops are precursors of a seismic shift taking shape in presidential politics -- California as a top priority for Republicans.

The nation's largest state has always been a sunny ATM for presidential candidates of both parties. In 2004, President Bush got 10 percent of his campaign funds there and Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., got 20 percent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2772.html

[Peach]

Reagan appointed Rudy as his #3 man at Department of Justice.

Rudy was pleased to win the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award.

At the Reagan Library Gift Shop, all but 3 of the books sold under the "Ronald Reagan Book" section are about Reagan himself or presidential modes of transportation.

Rudy Giuliani's book Leadership is one of those 3 books.

The other 2 are written by Reagan's son and McCaslin.

Indeed, in one recent poll, majorities of Republicans who were informed of Giuliani’s views on social issues said that they were either minor issues or no issues at all; only 16% said that they wouldn't vote for him after being informed of these views.

In the online GOP Bloggers poll, Giuliani is consistently one of the few candidates to end up with a net positive acceptability rating. These internet denizens are well-informed, and overwhelmingly self-describe as conservative (78% self-describe as 7 or higher on a 10-scale of conservatism). If these people can support Rudy, anyone can.

Human Events, Is Giuliani the Republican Peyton Manning,
2/6/07
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1780060/posts

Rudy has a strong 84% conservative approval rating. (Battle ground poll as of Jan.11, '07)

Sam Brownback would support Rudy as presidential nominee, but thinks that he (Brownback) will enter race.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1752817/posts


Rudy defended Sen. George Allen against racism charges.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1709893/posts

Rudy stumped for Rep. Santorum
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/4/19/115741.shtml?s=ic

In a very interesting City Journal article, Steven Malanga argues that "Yes, Rudy Guiliani Is a Conservative/And an electable one at that."

Malanga makes a strong case for Rudy as a Reagan-style conservative. After recounting Giuliani's record as mayor of New York City, in which, as Malanga establishes firmly, Rudy supported free markets and individual responsibility, as exemplified vividly in his tax cuts , welfare reform success, "zero tolerance" crimefighting, and firm rejection of racial politics.

As Malanga notes, Giuliani did this in what was one of the most leftist cities in the US.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1774783/posts

Ultra social conservative Pat Robertson thinks Rudy would make a good president.

Asked if Giuliani would be an acceptable 2008 presidential candidate to Christian conservatives, Pat Robertson told ABC's "This Week:" "He did a super job running the city of New York and I think he'd make a good president."

When Arafat was in town for a U.N. conference and showed up uninvited to a concert at the Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, the mayor knew exactly what to do. He kicked him out.

The incident caused an uproar. Former mayor Ed Koch declared that "Giuliani has behavioral problems," and the Clinton administration was angered at Giuliani's boldness. Giuliani, however, was not swayed. "My only regret," he told an aide, "was that I didn't throw him out myself." Actions like this earned Giuliani the ire of Democrats everywhere in the '90s.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19980

[BigSkyFreeper]

Looks like Rudy's a hit with California's 55 electoral votes.

[areafiftyone]

- Rudy tossed Arafat out of a city sponsored celebrations saying, "I would rather not have someone who has been implicated in the murders of Americans there, if I have the discretion not to have him there”.
- Rudy did the same to Fidel Castro.
- When a Saudi prince donated millions to 9/11 relief efforts and later suggested that United States policy in the Middle East may have been partially responsible for the attacks, Rudy returned the money.
- Rudy refused to meet with racial arsonist Al Sharpton.
- Rudy as mayor was strong on law and order. Rudy said that "government exists above all to keep people safe in their homes and in the streets, not to redistribute income, run a welfare state, or perform social engineering". And Rudy backed this all up by going after both quality-of-life crimes and serious crimes. Total crime went down by some 64 percent during the Giuliani years, and murder went down 67 percent. Auto thefts went down on average about 80,000 per year.
- Rudy supported the police when the police had to enter and deal with Muslims at a mosque.
- Rudy closed down many porn shops across the city and specifically shutdown porn shops in residential neighborhoods.
- Rudy went after both low level and high level drug dealers for the first time in the cities history.
- Rudy had zero tolerance for quality of life crimes such as squeegee extortionists, graffiti vandals, panhandling and public urination.
- Rudy launched a welfare revolution, removing illegal recipients, cutting the rolls by 20% the first year alone and dropping the welfare rolls by 600,000 over the course of his plan.
- Rudy launched a work requirement program for the remaining welfare recipients. the NY Times called it slavery.
- Rudy constantly spoke out against illegitimacy and fatherless families. One of many things that Rudy said on the subject was the following: " If you wanted a social program that would really save these kids, . I guess the social program would be called fatherhood.
" - Rudy objected to affirmative action. Rudy ended the cities set-aside program for minority contractors.
- Rudy rejected the idea of lowering the job requirement standards for minorities and woman. - Rudy said. "it was unfair to expect middle-class kids to work their way through college by holding down jobs and going to classes while exempting students on welfare from working.
" - Rudy reformed the public school system and forced out liberal chancellors who wouldn't install his reforms.
- Rudy tried to privatize 5 of the cities worst public schools.
- Rudy was for school vouchers Rudy said, "The whole notion of choice is really about more freedom for people, rather than being subjugated by a government system that says you have no choice about the education of your child,".
- Rudy fought against public money for an art display that defiled Christ and he fought against other obscene so-called works of art.
- Rudy played hardball with city unions winning concessions from city workers that other mayors had failed to do.
- Rudy strong armed state leaders to merge the cities Housing Police and Transit Police into the NYPD saving the city hundreds of millions. Rudy did this by threatening to fire every housing and transit officer and rehire each as a city cop if legislative leaders did not go along.
- Rudy did the same with the city’s garbageman, many of whom worked only half days because the department was so overstaffed with union jobs. Rudy won $300 million in savings from them by threatening to contract out trash collection to private companies.
- Rudy cut or killed 23 levies and taxes, saving taxpayers $9.8 billion during his terms.
- Rudy cut NYC's top income-tax rate by 20.6%.
- Local NYC taxes on a family of four dropped 23.7% during Rudy's term.
- Rudy cut the commercial-rent tax.
- Rudy cut sales taxes, including taxes on clothing.
- Rudy cut the marriage penalty on taxpaying couples.
- Rudy cut taxes on commercial rents everywhere outside of Manhattan’s major business districts, and various taxes on small businesses and self-employed New Yorkers.
- Rudy's expenditure growth averaged 2.9% annually, while local inflation between January 1994 and December 2001 averaged 3.6%.
- Rudy privatized municipal assets.
- Rudy sold WNYC radio for $20 million, WNYC-TV for $207 million, and NYC's share of the U.N. Plaza Hotel for $85 million.
- Rudy divested the City from the New York Coliseum adding $345 million to city coffers.
- Rudy let the private Central Park Conservancy manage Central Park.
- Rudy cut NYC's hotel tax from 6% to 5%. Consequently, hotel tax revenues increased from $135 million in Fiscal Year 1995 to $239 million in FY 2001.
- When asked if Rudy would raise taxes after 9/11 Rudy said that would be "a dumb, stupid, idiotic, and moronic thing to do.
" - A quote from Rudy on his economic philosophy: “City government should not and cannot create jobs through government planning. The best it can do, and what it has a responsibility to do, is to deal with its own finances first, to create a solid budgetary foundation that allows businesses to move the economy forward on the strength of their energy and ideas. After all, businesses are and have always been the backbone of New York City.
” - Construction permits increased by more than 50% in the city per year during Rudy's terms.
- Tourism increased 50% in the city per year during Rudy's terms.
- City jobs increased by 430,000 to an all time high of 3.72 million during Rudy's terms.
- City personal income increased 50% during Rudy's terms.
- The percentage income that city residence paid in taxes declined from 8.8 to 7.3 percent during Rudy's terms.
- Unemployment in the city went form 10.3% to 5.1% during Rudy's terms.
- Rudy was an outstanding leader during the 9/11 crisis.
- Rudy has been a strong supporting in our WOT including supporting the mission in Iraq.
- Rudy was chosen by Ronald Reagan in 1981 as an Associate Attorney General placing him in the third highest position in the Reagan's DOJ.
- In 1983, Rudy was appointed by Reagan to be U.S. Attorney for the SD of NY. In that position, Rudy amassed 4,152 convictions including the heads of NY's so-called "Five Families". Rudy also prosecuted terrorists and illegal immigrants.

[Peach]

Big. Huge.

[Peach]

Whoa! I didn't know Rudy did the same with Sharpton and Castro. I'll tell you this - the guy has guts to spare.

He'll take on anyone!

[Peach]

Can I copy that list, areafiftyone? I'll try not to post it on threads you've already posted it on, but since the powers that be around here don't mind the same spam on EVERY THREAD, if it accidentally ends up published a few times on Rudy threads, it's not really a big deal.

[areafiftyone]

sure! It's actually something I stole from another Freeper with his permission of course! :-)

[BigSkyFreeper]

BTTT A51

[kellynla]

Hey, Peach, is this Mike Allen the same clown that was at the Bush Presser today? Bush asked some clown who he worked for and he said "politico.com" and when Bush asked him to tell the everyone who didn't know what "politico.com" was; the reporter just looked at Bush like the proverbial deer in the headlights, started to hand the microphone to someone else before Bush let him off the hook and allowed him to ask his question without the reporter telling everyone what "politico.com" was...

[Clemenza]

(Cue Godfather Theme, followed by Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Keep it Gay") ;-)

[bill1952]

And so it keeps going...

The GOP will win California when all of the planets align and most of it slides off into the sea.

In other words, never.

[Peach]

Good catch! I didn't hear where the guy said he worked but gathered it was a blog or something. You're pretty sure he said Politico.com? Now that's interesting.

I'd never even heard of this website until tonight.

[Peach]

Thanks and thank you to whichever freeper helped out here.

[cripplecreek]

The wave is really a flood caused by global warming.

[BigSkyFreeper]

I saw Mike Allen on C-SPAN the other day on Washington Journal where he was handicapping the 2008 election candidates. First time I ever heard of the guy or that website. He seemed to think it will boil down to Rudy vs. Hillary.

[IslandJeff]

It's a war. If the Dems have to defend Cal, that's less $$ they have to shore up OH, PA, MI, WI, etc.

[areafiftyone]

He called Fidel Castro a Murderer!

[BigSkyFreeper]

I think that's where the battleground will remain. They seem to think they have a lock on the four corners region, I say they're counting their chickens before the eggs hatch.

[PhiKapMom]

Way to go!