Posted on 03/04/2007 8:54:51 AM PST by Chi-townChief
The Bush administration bungled the Iraqi and Afghanistan occupations so badly that the president's base is in a mad scramble toward that camera-ready symbol of national security: Rudy Giuliani. Even if he is a counterfeit conservative, the unannounced New Yorker is now the Republican party's front-runner, sprinting past its old media darling John McCain. A CBS News poll last week showed ''America's mayor'' with a 50 percent to 21 percent surge over America's war hero among likely GOP voters. The only big-city mayor to be elected U.S. president was Grover Cleveland, back in the 19th century. I see no reason to tamper with that single precedent. But if the Repubs want to raise the bar by running a mayor for president, the Dems should do the same. How about this dream match-up: Time magazine's Man of the Year vs. Time magazine's Top Big-City Mayor? It would be the clash of the titans. And, when the dust settled, I'll bet it won't be Giuliani time.
Fresh off an election victory that could lead to the longest-ruling-big-city-boss entry in the Guinness Book of Records, Chicago's Richard M. Daley would clout-slap Giuliani silly in an '08 presidential smack-down. Just elected to his sixth term in office, Daley strong-armed some love from all quarters and crannies of his Midwest metropolis. In comparison, Giuliani was saved by NYC's quaint term-limit law. Had he been allowed to run for a third term, New Yorkers would have run him out of office. On Sept. 10, 2001, Giuliani was a little more popular than a snaggle-toothed plain Jane, with a running cold sore, selling smooches at a county fair booth. The next day, after Osama bin Laden's terrorists struck and the international media descended on the Big Apple, the scandal-infested, lame duck-mayor's star fatefully rose again. Thanks to days of photo-ops at funerals, Giuliani morphed into the poster child of American leadership.
It's easy to look at Daley and Giuliani and decide the two are alike. After all, Daley is one of the nation's most Republican Democrats and Giuliani is one of the nation's most Democratic Republicans. This the New Yorker knows. So with all deliberate guile, he has started to distinguish himself by shifting the nation's right-wing concerns away from family values -- with good cause. Giuliani has embraced gay rights, and he's on the record as pro-choice and anti-guns. There isn't a dime's worth of difference in Daley's position. The boring Chicagoan distinguishes himself by remaining married and faithful to the mother of his grown children. Giuliani is on his third wife and who-knows-which mistress.
Then there's foreign affairs. Neither mayor has real experience in that arena. Nor have they demonstrated disaster preparedness. As the Twin Towers crumbled, New York's firefighters and police couldn't communicate with each other because Giuliani had failed to ensure coordination between the two departments. And a Homeland Security report released two months ago gave Chicago low marks on its readiness.
It doesn't matter. As mayor, Giuliani unleashed his police force to reduce crime. Its success made national news. Four of New York's finest cornered Amadou Diallo, a black immigrant from Guinea, in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building. The plainclothes cops fired 41 shots at him. Unarmed and not a suspect of any crime, Diallo died while trying to go home. Two Harlem teenagers, Robert Reynoso and Juval Green, were luckier. They were only wounded when New York police opened fire on them as they ran down the street. The cops thought they had a gun. They had no gun.
Daley is tougher than Giuliani. His police department has made sure that more than one unarmed Chicagoan has suffered the plight of Diallo, Reynoso and Green. As the Cook County state's attorney, Daley couldn't hear, didn't see and wouldn't read reports that one of Chicago's finest, Lt. Jon Graham Burge, was torturing suspects into making confessions.
A Daley or Giuliani in the White House would make al-Qaida think twice. With a president who has demonstrated his willingness to allow innocent people shot or tortured to keep the peace, a foreign terrorist would have to be a psychopath and suicidal to tread on us.
mailto:monroeanderson@gmail.com
Daley is not running for president - why does this even matter? and who do you think is the guy who is going to knock Rudy of the primaries?
The drive-by media would love nothing more than to have a Hillary-Giliuni matchup. They can't lose either way. That's why we keep seeing polls ad nuseum pushing Giuliani at the invincible frontrunner.
"Daley is one of the nation's most Republican Democrats..."
What a bunch of BS.
Many of he rats could run to the right of Rino Rudy on some issues.
Heh... Daley as President. Pleeease... the federal government is corrupt enough.
Giuliani is to the GOP like a person told by a doctor,"you must take a blood transfusion or you will die". You know unwanted anti-bodies could be within the blood you are about to receive but unless you take the blood"YOU WILL DIE" He is the GOP's only salvation regardless of his shortcomings.
You gotta remember the yardstick... this is the home of socialist Barack Obama... who in two years has one of the most liberal voting records in the senate.
There's funny stuff flowing into the drinking water from Lake Michigan.
Too soon to tell; between Rudy, Mitt, and McCain, one of the three will drop out and the remaining two will split the "moderate" vote allowing one of the 2nd-tier guys to move up and challenge.
You gotta love opinion pieces from the City of Big Shoulders, where EVERYTHING is for sale, and the corrupt Democrat machine usually buys it all - with YOUR tax dollars...
That's just Chicago race politics talking: since Daley has handed one black candidate's after another's ass to them, it stands to reason that he's a Republican. Goofy, yes, but I've seen a lot weirder stuff here in Beirut-by-the-lake.
Rudy's an OK guy but just a bad candidate but if we're heading for the ass-kicking that it looks like we are in '08, he may be the best guy to take the brunt of it.
If anybody knocks off Rudy, as things stand now, it'll be Romney. It won't be McCain, because the base will never trust him. Hunter and Tancredo are definitely more appealing, but as of now, I don't see either one being able to raise the money or Big Mo' to mount a serious national campaign.
The federal investigation of Chicago city hall corruption has already led to indictments and will continue. Though Daley hasn't been accused of anything yet, somebody is going to roll over and it might finally implicate the mayor. Daley could never stand the scrutiny a presidential campaign would bring. Rats would come out of the woodwork like they always do.
'Zactly. There should be a barf alert on this one. I'm going to try and find a picture of the author. I'm positive that I know what he looks like although I'vr never seen him.
I've always said Daily 'deserves' to be Chicago's mayor until he can't do the job anymore.
He could still run the city from behind bars if needed. There are higher powers that be that actually call the shots around the city.
Some of those powers can be heard yelling from time to time, "Hey guard, open up. I gottta make a call."
Sorry - I assumed that 'LEFTY "JOURNALIST"' would be barf alert enough. As far as Monroe Anderson is concerned, think Urkel.
Daley can keep winning on just the votes in the machines left over from the old man.
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