Giuliani has been receiving an extreme amount of coverage and scrutiny in the press over his record, persona and relationship with the conservative GOP base.
But he is still is leading in the polls very steadily since May, trending upwards to the point he will probably crack the 30% mark again. He defies all of the pundits who said he would crash and burn. We have been hearing this since January, but guess what, it’s not happening, he’s rising in the polls even as attention is put on the supposed conservative exodus that is claimed would happen. He has the highest favorability ratings of any candidate in either party. He has the best name recognition of any of the candidates other than her highness. You mentioned his “America’s Mayor” moniker, a recognition and respect most candidates would kill to have.
Giuliani is an incredibly intelligent and powerful public speaker. He made a habit of not using prepared speeches while mayor, so he’s quick on the fly, and utterly absorptive of any issue material. He knows the stuff. His history as a crackerjack prosecutor gives him the kind of debating ability most candidates lack. That ability will be needed to combat Hillary. She will make very few campaign mistakes, it will be an ice cold campaign. So far Giuliani has been consistently at the top of each debate so far if not outright winning each one.
Thompson has not demonstrated he has the energy, charisma or competency at this point that is required to be president. The best Fred Thompson speech ever was right after he was sworn in to the Senate. I remember watching it thinking this guy is a great speaker, he’s likable, engaging, he should run for president. We did not see that last night.
I think Romney could still catch Rudy, especially since Romney is looking good to easily take Iowa. Romney has high energy, knows his stuff, and is engaging. Rudy is catching up in NH, and if Rudy wins NH, its over for Romney. BTW Rudy is up in the latest Michigan poll, another bad sign for Romney. Fred’s numbers are artificially high, due to his LA Law show only.
Huckabee should be polling higher than Fred, as should Duncan Hunter, both far more competent and energetic than Thompson. I think Huckabee is angling for the VP slot with Rudy or Romney. huckabee told James Dobson to go to hell with his third party idea, he said ““No, I think a third party only helps elect Hillary [Clinton],”“I don’t see that being a good strategy for those who really care about pushing a pro-family, pro-life agenda.”
Bottom line, like Huckabee, I want to win 2008. WE CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE TO HIIALRY. What many are in fact promoting is to chase an unqualified narcotic candidate in the name of political ideology, only to later get stomped in a general election by Hillary, which results in decades of real tangible and painful setbacks to conservative causes. Sorry, that’s a suicide pact. I want the best candidate. Unfortunately Giuliani is not a conservative, he’s a center right moderate, but country comes for me before ideology and party and the best way for me to see moving America towards the values I follow, we need to win 2008, not lose and hopefully regroup.
Fred's running for the vice-presidential slot. He may indeed get it.
He'd fit right into the job, and it would be a good move for him at this stage of his life.
Time for me to run for cover.....!
- John
If you throw a ball straight up it rises, for a while. But even as it is going up, sensible people know it is coming back down. The same is true of Rudy’s candidacy.
Your own post indicates that much of Rudy’s appeal is based on the idea that he is the best man to take Hillary on. That idea is pure nonsense and sooner or later most Republicans will realize that and turn away from Rudy.
Look around FreeRepublic and any number of other conservative sites for evidence that a significant number of loyal Republicans won’t be voting for him. Consider the exit polling data from the last two presidential elections which give ample evidence of the degree to which the social issues contributed to President Bush’s two narrow victories. How do you think Rudy can make up for losing the voters he alienates?
Do you think he can do it by being an “incredibly intelligent and powerful public speaker?” Not happening. Even if he were an intelligent speaker, that and five bucks would buy him a nice cup of coffee. In reality, Rudy is the most muddled Republican presidential candidate since Gerald Ford, Bob Dole included.
His strong suit is supposed to be the law and he doesn’t even understand that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. Just last night he blundered by arguing as if a Supreme Court decision were entirely dispositive of a constitutional issue, something nobody who understands the limits of the judicial role could do.
Rudy is a fairly ordinary legal bureaucrat with an entirely pedestrian mind who shows no capacity to transcend the leftism of his home town. In his entire career he has never said anything with enough depth to be memorable. Where’s the vaunted power in his speech?
Run down Rudy’s twelve principles. Every one’s a platitude and none of them even hints at any special capacity to be an effective presidential candidate or an effective president if elected. Giuliani can’t be much of a communicator because he has nothing much to communicate.
Republicans aren’t going to beat Hillary with a themeless but divisive pudding like Rudy. They will realize that eventually and when they do, the Giuliani bubble will burst.
What happens then is anybody’s guess. Either Thompson or Romney will probably get the nomination largely by default. One of them will follow a trajectory something like John Kerry’s in 2004 and win by being the last plausible guy standing when the voting starts.
Whichever one wins in the end will be a vastly stronger candidate than Rudy could ever be. Romney has much more native intelligence and he has positioned himself so that he has a shot at unifying the GOP. Thompson has a great deal more depth and started out positioned to unify the party.
I don’t quite understand what you were looking for that you haven’t seen to date in the Thompson campaign. Is he the “narcotic” candidate to which you refer? If so that’s an argument that reeks of panic and the bad judgment to which panic leads.
We aren’t going to beat Hillary by battering her with great energy and passion. That will whip up the faithful on both sides as it makes the rest of the country turn away in disgust. A winning candidate will speak to the American people about important things calmly, sensibly and with dignity. Rudy is hardly the guy for that job description.
Get off the Rudy bus. It’s a one way ride to nowhere.