1. Iraq . . . I'll consider this a "Not Applicable," since Rudy Giuliani has been steadfastly silent on this issue in recent weeks and will make every attempt to go through the entire campaign without even mentioning it at all. Iraq is going to be a huge albatross around the neck of any GOP candidate in 2008,
2. Iran . . . You can give him a 1 if you'd like, but nobody has any idea about what his specific ideas on this issue are. Anyone can stand up there and say that Iran shouldn't have nuclear weapons without giving any particular points about how to deal with the issue effectively.
3. Gun control . . . I'd give him a -1 if possible (since he is one of the most radical anti-gun zealots ever to hold public office in the U.S.), but a 0 will have to do.
4. Limited government . . . No way he deserves a 1 on this, since New York City's government was even bigger when he left office than it was on the day of his inauguration. I'll give him a 1/2 on this just because his ability to reduce the growth of NYC's bloated government ran against the grain of history in that place.
5. Crime . . . You've given him a 1, but I'll be generous and call this "Not Applicable." No candidate who has proudly violated a Federal law for the sake of political expediency can ever stand up and be a credible "law and order" candidate. For a former Federal prosecutor to take a position like this is disgraceful and idiotic.
6. Health care . . . He may talk a good game, but you never heard Rudy Giuliani do anything other than champion the notion of government-paid health care -- especially when the "government" doing the paying was either the State of New York or the Federal government -- when he was mayor of New York. I'll give him a "Not Applicable" on this one just to be generous.
7. Domestic terrorism . . . Give him a big, fat 0 on this one. I can't even be generous on this, because he fails on two specific points: A) his sole contribution to the effort against domestic terrorism has been the recommendation for political hack and convicted criminal Bernard Kerik for the U.S. Homeland Security post; and B) in the one specific pre-9/11 case in which he was faced with an act of "domestic terrorism" while mayor of New York City (the attack against tourists on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in 1997 by a Palestinian terrorist), he refused to even call the attack an act of terrorism -- and in fact immediately built it into a campaign prop for his anti-gun crusade.
8. Freedom . . . I'll give him a 0 on this one, too. Even many of his strongest supporters will privately (or even publicly) admit that he's an authoritarian A-hole.
9. Taxes . . . You give him a 1. I'll give him a 1/2 at best, mainly for personal reasons (I'd prefer to give him a 0). He may have cut 23 different taxes in New York City, but he refused to cut one specific tax that would have applied to me (and violated one of his key campaign promises in the process), and went to great lengths to challenge another New York State tax cut in court (the elimination of the commuter tax by the Pataki administration) that directly applied to me. Most New York City residents and workers did not see any real reduction in their tax burden under his administration.
10. Deficit . . . You give him a 0, but I'd consider this "Not Applicable." He had very little control over the revenue side of New York City's revenue/spending balance, and I consider Items #9 and #10 on this list to be a combined issue anyway.
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So there you have it. As far as I'm concerned, on the issues YOU selected he grades at 1 out of 5, with 5 Not Applicables because of either a lack of solid information on a specific issue or because of radically different elements in his background and/or public statements on these issues.
If you want to add 1 point to his grade for personal "gut instinct" reasons on one or two issues (i.e., turn two of the N/A grades to 0.5, or one of them to 1), then you've got a guy who grades out at 33% at best -- and that's on the issues YOU selected.
Are you trying to be objective? Spending every year was about 1% less than the rate of inflation.
That's your interpretation of his statements. Of course, you try to be as negative as you can, while I did my best to be fair. Being President is very, very differnt from being a mayor. And I hope that in 2010, we can have a debate about what a good President Rudy has been. I think you'll be surprised.
Of course this is about abortion. People who oppose abortion and view it as murder, view Rudy as someone who is supporting legal murder. Thus, they are more likely to regard him as an evil person who is trying to trick conservatives into electing someone who will govern as a liberal. I don't think that's the case.