Posted on 03/16/2007 5:05:33 AM PDT by areafiftyone
The same Beltway experts who declared Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) the GOP frontrunner, even as he under-polled fellow presidential contender Rudolph W. Giuliani, now parrot equally dodgy concepts. When Republicans meet “the real Rudy,” they will abandon New York’s former mayor like cattle fleeing a burning barn. Then, the wobbly Washington wisdom continues, Giuliani’s three marriages, and his less-than-solidly right-wing views on gays, guns, and gametes will torpedo his buoyant presidential hopes.
These seers now detect unhappiness with the GOP aspirants. They cite a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in which 26% of Republican primary voters were dissatisfied with Giuliani, McCain, and former Massachusetts governor Willard Mitt Romney, among others. However, 56% called these choices satisfactory. This mirrors the 57%of conservative Republicans who preferred Giuliani, versus 31% for McCain. More broadly, Republicans backed Giuliani 38% to McCain’s 24, former House speaker Newt Gingrich’s 10, Romney’s 8, and 2% each for Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
But what if voters like Giuliani better upon understanding his pre-9-11 performance? Educating Republicans on his complete mayoral record -- and soon -- may be Giuliani’s best bet for extinguishing lingering grumbling about his candidacy.
I recently visited Baltimore, Charlotte, Richmond, Salem, Oregon; Seattle, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, mainly to deliver speeches sponsored by Young America’s Foundation. I conversed with conservative activists, College Republican leaders, university professors, and think-tank scholars, among others.
These Americans vividly remember Giuliani emerging from the ashes of September 11, like a latter-day Churchill rising from the rubble of the London Blitz. However, these involved and informed citizens knew startlingly little about Giuliani’s other mayoral achievements:
GO RUDY
Now your talkin. The one with the most integrity gets the most support. psssst it ain't Rudy.
Are those issues in order from most important down? Thanks LG...they mirror me pretty much as well..
I know he's a flaming liberal. Basically, he was saying (mind you, I didn't read the book, this is based on reviews) that abandoning New Deal liberalism for relatively sensible, Clintonian economics was a mistake, because key groups of voters began to see too little difference between the Dems and the GOP, and started voting on the basis of social issues.
I don't agree with his thesis. I'm using him to say that we shouldn't fall in the same trap. It isn't a question of running a true conservative and winning. If that was the case, Tom McClintock would be Governor of California and not RINO Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2004 was very, very different from 2008. We kept both Houses in 2004 and even increased our majorities. In 2006, we LOST the House and, aganst all odds, even the Senate. You shouldn't presume that 2008 will be a cakewalk for someone like Duncan Hunter, because it won't be. He would get my vote, but that would not prevent him from losing in a landslide.
I do not see the US as a monolithic culture. It is a tight economic confederation that issues passports, taxes, spends on public projects, etc. But one is not less of an American if one is Hawaiian or African or German or any other culture. There is and should be nothing in America that precludes one from embracing a particular cultura and being an American, unless the cultural forces impede on other Americans' constitutional freedoms.
Therefore, it is outside the purview of government to shape and influence culture. That is for individuals and churches and other cultural institutions to do. I realize this makes me more of a libertarian than conservative, but I love freedom and I have that in common with most conservatives.
I think abortion is an abomination. I think Rowe v Wade is bad law. I think the culture and government are both cesspools of decadence, and growing more that way by the day. But, unfortunately, in a democracy you cannot change the culture by changing government. You must change government by changing the culture.
Given all that, socialism has been very good to me. I have prosperred. I can go to restaurants and be guaranteed a smoke-free environment. If I want to travel, I must be frisked by federal agents, but I am reasonably assured that my flight will not be terrorized. So if I must live in socialism, I want someone to manage it with some semblance of honesty, frugality, commitment to the constitution.
Neither party will deliver on this, but the Republicans seem slightly more in line with my hopes than the Democrats. As for Giuliani, he has demonstrated great skill as an administrator of a cesspool. Above all else, that's what qualifies him to be president, and so I will support him.
I'll give a 1 for a good position and a 0 for a bad position or if I don't know what his position is.
- War on Terror (Iraq) - 1 (he fully supports it)
- Iran - 1 (I trust he'll deal with Iran as well, if necessary)
- Gun control - 0
- Limited Government 1 (he cut the size of government, welfare garbage, etc.)
- Crime 1 (he cracked down on crime, cut murders by 66%)
- Health care (i.e., stopping universal) 1 (in his CPAC speech, he talked about how our health care system is the best in the world, and that it should remain a private system)
- Domestic terrorism 1 (perhaps this should be combined with 'Crime', but ostensibly anti-crime candidates could still oppose critical terrorism-related issues like the Patriot Act, locking up unlawful combatants, etc.)
- Freedom (no gambling ban and other garbage) 0
- Taxes 1 (he cut taxes 23 times)
- Deficit 0
He gets 7 points. 70% adherence to my agenda. Pretty good, eh?
Okay, can you prove that Rudy is less than 50% conservative?
/s
Well, I didn't number them because I had to make the list, I didn't have it ready in my head, but they generally are in order from the most important down (especially the War on Terror). That's not to say that I consider taxes to be one of the least important issues.
If you don't agree with his thesis, what trap are you worried about falling into? Resisting a drift to the middle? Why?
When the tide of opinion on abortion has shifted to a point where 85% of people support the PBA, and many candidates now are openly hostile to R v. W without consequence. When gun control has been shown to be such a loser that the dems did not make a peep about it during the last few election cycles. When the blowback against those trying to ban the Pledge of Allegiance was swift and severe, when gay marriage bans are running 27 to 1 for passing, and winning in even blue states. This is the time to moderate?
We lost in 06 from incompetence, not philosophy.
That's how we end up with a stupid nation-building exercise for "freedom and democracy" in Iraq, while supporting totalitarian regime in Pakistan, while supporting a royal family of Wahabbists (and major financiers global terrorism) in Saudi Arabia.
It's also why this nation-building crap in Iraq has resulted in the creation of a country in which Islam is enshrined as the official state religion -- while we refuse to even suggest that Islamic terrorists are the real enemy.
It's also why we subject elderly people in wheelchairs to intense security measures at airports, while at the same time we decide to grant another 10,000 student visas to people from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, etc. who fit the profile of nearly every terrorist attack this country has faced in the last 15 years (young Islamic males).
I've made the case that Rudy Giuliani has no credibility to wage this "war on terror" (whatever the heck that's supposed to mean) simply because he has long been an unabashed, proud opponent of the most effective means of protection U.S. citizens have against the type of terrorist attacks they are most likely to face in their lives here in the United States.
Well, superficial minds tend to lean to caricature. It's about all they can handle.
Gotta appreciate your lack of appreciation for Rudy.
But your anti war nonsense is just that, nonsense.
Oh, stop it! You're not going to guilt-trip conservatives into voting for the next guy in line just because he has the (R) after his name. That crap doesn't sell anymore.
Rudi will not have the same kind of executive power in the White House as he enjoyed in NYC. Congress isn't the powerless entity that the NYC Council is.
Where to begin?
Most people who oppose PBA (partial-birth abortion, not the ban) are pro-choice. The fact that a person is opposed to a particularly horrific abortion technique, doesn't mean that he believes that abortion should be illegal.
As for candidate who are hostile to Roe v. Wade, I certainly haven't seen them. Why do you think that President Bush and others have been so ambiguous on the subject of abortion, declaring fealty to the "culture of life", while not openly endorsing making abortions illegal. Exactly because such hostility is an electoral loser. You might ask Senators Rick Santorum and Alan Keyes if you don't believe me.
As for gay marriage bans, most people oppose gay marriage but favor civil unions. And they certainly oppose discrimination against gay people. That's the middle ground, and that is the position that both President Bush and Rudy Giuliani have.
I certainly wouldn't argue that 2006 was solely lost on philosophy. However, the party's close relations with the Religious Right is harming the party in the long run. In 1980, it was an absolute winner, because moderate Republicans were reassured by Reagan's individualism. By drawing in new socially conservative and security-minded Democrats, he won two landslide victories. However, gradually, pro-choice Republicans and others who aren't particularly relgious, are being alienated by the party. Look at the Terri Schiavo mess. It single-handedly began the GOP's slide in the polls.
Hillary already beat Rudy once, in 2000. The fact that he happened to be mayor of NYC when we were attacked won't be enough to make a difference. The Clinton camp (including the MSM) knows that he can be beaten, and will continue to push for him to be the Republican nominee.
I agree with your criticism of measures against racial profling. Are you claiming, in the last paragraph, that Rudy opposes racial profiling?
However, the rest of your post is a little bit misguided, I would say. We support totalitarians in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia because we don't have another option. The alternative to Musharraf in Pakistan is, quite literally, Osama bin Laden or someone like him. Imagine an Osama bin Laden with nuclear weapons. President Bush hopes to achieve an internal revolt in the Muslim world by establishing a democracy in Iraq, and that would make us safer by removing one of the root causes of terrorism: oppression. And maybe Islam, too.
Rudy isn't politically correct. He has not been politically correct and never will be.
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