Posted on 02/25/2007 11:18:51 AM PST by My2Cents
Giuliani's fight of his life
Paul Harris
MIAMI
25-Feb-07
IN POST 9/11 America, seeing Rudy Giuliani in the flesh can feel like meeting a living saint. That day in early September 2001 is sacrosanct in the national psyche and Giuliani is the holy symbol of American resilience; American defiance; American courage.
As Giuliani walks on to a stage in front of a business crowd in Miami Beach it is impossible not to think back to the fall of the World Trade Center. Not that Giuliani lets his audience forget. He is in Miami to lecture on the principles of leadership. But, inevitably, the events of 9/11 creep regularly into his talk. He tells anecdote after anecdote, reminding the audience that while they watched the horror unfold on TV, he was actually there. "I just started making decisions," he says of the moment he heard the planes had struck.
The steps he took that day have passed into American folklore. He was the clear head who kept his nerve in a moment that defined the era in which we live. Giuliani walked right into the heart of a stricken nation and became America's mayor. Now the march that he began in the ashes of 9/11 might lead him to the White House.
Giuliani has embarked on a remarkable campaign to test the waters for a possible presidential bid. He is touring the country, raising money and hiring staff. When faced with possible Democratic opponents, especially Hillary Clinton, he trounces them. The numbers speak a simple fact: Rudy Giuliani could become the most powerful man in the world.
But at the same time Giuliani faces challenges unique among the presidential candidates. In an age of religious conservatism, will the Republicans really choose a man who is pro-choice on abortion and pro-gay rights? Will the evangelical Christians who supported George Bush support Giuliani?
Giuliani's private life three-times divorced and plagued by scandal makes Bill Clinton's chequered past look almost virginal. Giuliani is a man whose father was an enforcer for organised crime. A man who separated from his first wife when he discovered she was his second cousin. And there's more: scandals, rages and grudges galore.
And yet, though officially he is only "exploring" the idea, most political insiders are betting Giuliani is going for it. The political winds of a world defined by 9/11 are blowing at his back. The signs are good.
Confidence in Guiliani is gaining momentum in the Republican political classes as he crisscrosses the country building up a formidable organisation. Since he left office as Mayor of New York at the end of 2001 he has visited 46 states and campaigned for 170 Republican candidates. He has held his first fundraiser, a swanky US$2,100-a-head Manhattan cocktail party that netted upwards of US$500,000. He has also aggressively courted key officials close to the White House.
Giuliani's nascent campaign is now seen as such a threat to the main players such as early Republican front-runner John McCain or former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney that he has already been the victim of dirty tricks. In January a dossier turned up in the pages of the New York Daily News detailing Giuliani's campaign strategy. It laid out fundraising targets, schedules and budgets and speculated openly that Giuliani's personal life and views on social issues could force him to drop out. But the leak backfired. What the documents showed was the sheer scale of Giuliani's vision. It outlined plans to spend more than US$21 million before the end of 2007 and to raise US$100 million for the Republican nomination campaign. It detailed how to attract big-name fundraisers from the cash-rich political heartlands of Washington, California and New York.
The plans spelt out not just how risky Giuliani's campaign could be, but also how ambitious. "The whole race is wide open this time. It is a crowd. You can do well there if you are Rudy Giuliani," says Lee Miringoff, director of the prestigious Marist Institute for Public Opinion.
As Giuliani begins to put those plans into action, one name pops up again and again: Ronald Reagan. Giuliani heaps praise upon America's sunny 80s president. He aims for the same political turf: balancing a tough line on national security with a cheerful outlook on America's prospects.
At a time when American TV screens fill each night with images of carnage from Iraq, Giuliani stands out with his message of optimism. "Reagan understood the power of optimistic leadership," he says in Delaware. "We have to be the party of optimism ... the party that looks to the future."
It's a strangely positive message from a man whose career was forged in disaster and mass murder. It is impossible to underestimate the power of Giuliani's actions in the days immediately after 9/11.
He took snap decisions and organised New York's emergency response. He toured hospitals, took to the airwaves and in the first 16 hours alone paid four visits to Ground Zero's still burning ruins. He even identified the body of a close friend, sparing the dead man's pregnant wife the trauma.
Such personal touches propelled Giuliani into the nation's psyche. But what people really remember is how Giuliani was there, while Bush was not. The President's frozen face in a Florida school room and subsequent escape to Nebraska aboard Air Force One contrasted strongly with Giuliani's hands-on heroics. Giuliani became the man Americans trust. He was lauded internationally. Jacques Chirac called him "Rudy the rock".
He not Bush was Time's 2001 Man of the Year. America was desperate for a hero and Giuliani provided it.
He has been riding that wave ever since. When he left office he embarked on a business career built around his fame. He toured the world giving speeches about his experience. Hiring him can cost US$100,000 a time. "The 9/11 aura has been something that he has exploited ruthlessly," says Robert Polner, editor of the book America's Mayor: The Hidden History of Rudy Giuliani's New York.
It surrounds him still. When his speech in Miami Beach is over and Giuliani asks for questions, it is not advice on business this audience craves. Or leadership. Or even more 9/11 anecdotes. They want to know what Giuliani would do about Iraq. He takes a measured, optimistic approach.
Democrats and Republicans, he says, should get behind the aim of victory, no matter the previous mistakes. "There is no point in rooting for defeat. More important than what it means for George Bush is what it means for America if we lose in Iraq. Democrats and Republicans have much to disagree about, but we don't disagree about terrorism," he says.
It sounds like a stump speech again. And, in a divided country, it also sounds like a potentially powerful call to the middle ground.
If he can take on the Media he will be my hero.
Nice post, thanks.
I'm confused. I think the post to which you are responding was in the context of illegal immigration.
I'm confused. I think the post to which you are responding was in the context of illegal immigration.
Yes, it is very good news, anytime anyone beats cancer and Rudy has now been cancer free since his original treatments.
"Rudy is cancer free now and says that he is going to release all of his medical records."
Her Heinous has said she will not release her medical records. What is she hiding? Long ago unreported "surgery"? Treatment for STD?
The Business World is already strongly supporting Rudy.
That's perfectly fine, but don't you think your mind should be made up the moment a candidate is selected? Why wait until election day to decide between fatso and the Republican candidate? Surely you wouldn't consider a third Party candidate? You must know a vote for them would be a vote against us. Remember how Clinton got elected in '92?
BTW, I would never vote for a third party just to "show those RINOs a lesson."
That silly Perrot-vian tactic cost us once before.
I have strong core beliefs but again, I'll make the best, most palatable, practical decision.
Cheers.
OK. As if we didn't have enough reason to oppose Rudy...
Replace "Giuliani" with "Lieberman" and you get the same result.
Giuliani raped a woman? Giuliani exposed himself to a woman in a hotel room? Giuliani copulated with the mouth of a 20-year old intern in Gracie Mansion?
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