Posted on 10/10/2007 3:48:29 PM PDT by Fred
It's over. The tempestuous love affair between Rudy Giuliani and New York City is headed for divorce court. It's a mutual, bitter split.
Voters strayed first. Ever since the former mayor left City Hall in January 2002, many New Yorkers have airbrushed him out of their pictures. Like cheaters ashamed of a one-night stand, liberal New Yorkers woke up and lied to themselves — they never voted for that Republican!
Now Giuliani is returning the favor. Just as he dumped his second wife before the TV cameras, he is dumping much of the crossover approach that made him a great mayor. As he woos conservative Republicans in the South and West, he is running away from New York even as he touts his record of reforming it.
The Rudy on the presidential stump bears little resemblance to the man who ran three times for mayor with the backing of the Liberal Party. He was a fusion candidate then — mixing the pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-immigrant stands of the Liberal Party with low-tax, anti-welfare, anti-crime toughness of the GOP.
It worked here, but he has decided it won't work there. So bye-bye, New York, hello, Texas. Perhaps he'll sell the Hamptons summer house to get a ranch where he can clear brush like you-know-who.
It's not unusual for politicians to tweak their game as they seek higher office. Usually it's a matter of emphasis or nuance, with the new position artfully stitched into the fabric of the old.
But Giuliani has bought himself a new wardrobe. Oddly, abortion, which is the hottest-button issue for GOP primary voters, is the one major social policy where Giuliani has been fairly consistent, although he does say now he hates abortion even as he supports it.
Yet the shape-shifting pales next to the abandonment of the way he governed here. It's as though he wants us to forget one of his virtues — a nondogmatic approach to dealing with everyday problems.
After he was reelected with 57% of the vote in 1997 on a platform of abortion rights, gun control and an eleventh-hour support for benefits for gay couples, the leader of the state Democratic Party gushingly compared him with Bill Clinton. "I think they're both part of a new generation of politicians who are seen as problem-solvers first and partisan operatives second," Judith Hope said.
Now the name Clinton escapes Giuliani's mouth only through a sneer. But in those days, he and President Bill were Best Buds. In 1994, Giuliani bucked congressional Republicans to support a Clinton anti-crime bill that banned assault weapons. He was so fervent that CBS News anchor Harry Smith told Giuliani that "there's a part of you that almost sounds like a Democrat."
And when Smith suggested that Giuliani was pandering to New York Democrats, Giuliani fired back, "This is what I believe in!" and said he was dealing with "complex problems that aren't solved by labels like liberal and conservative."
The crime bill passed, and two years later Giuliani was on the barricades with Clinton again when the GOP tried to overturn it. The mayor offered this advice to the President: "Go on the offensive" and ask for even stiffer gun control laws, saying, "seek uniform laws on gun control throughout the country."
He wrote to Chuck Schumer, then in the House, arguing that the existing law was "a crucial element" in the city's successful war against crime, even then the signature achievement of Giuliani's mayoralty.
Contrast that with his recent appearance before the National Rifle Association, where, incredibly, he said that 9/11 gave him a better appreciation of the Second Amendment. He threw in that he no longer supports a lawsuit he initiated against gun manufacturers or uniform control laws. "What works in New York doesn't necessarily work in Mississippi or Montana," his Web site said.
After his NRA appearance, the one he interrupted to take a phone call from his wife, an unhappy man in the audience said Giuliani was just "pandering."
Maybe. Or maybe he was pandering to New Yorkers when he needed our votes. Who knows?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
“I can already see the TV commercials... quote after quote of Rudy praising Bill Clinton...the debates...Hillary saying, “Gee, Rudy, you use to like Bill and I so much, What happened”?”
Rudy wants the Republican party to be Arnold-like, so there’s nearly no difference between the two. We’re so luck, aren’t we!?
LLS
Beats me how anyone could support him now. Geeze, hanging out with the "Brady bunch" and giving public appearances for them ought to have been enough to sink him. I wonder which factions are propping him up in the polls?
Rudy two face
Democratic lawmakers praised the Mayor's push for gun control. "It would be great if Mayor Giuliani could become the point Republican pushing comprehensive gun control legislation," said Representative Charles E. Schumer, the Brooklyn Democrat who is the leading proponent of handgun control in the House of Representatives.
--New York Times, March 8, 1994
It looks like President Giuliani and all of his liberal buddies (his liberal appointees and democrats in Congress) will have lots of bi-partisan cooperation for the liberal social agenda!!!
“Rudy two face”
Rudy 12 face!
Rudy Awakening
National Review Online | October 10, 2007 | Douglas W. Kmiec
Posted on 10/10/2007 2:15:03 PM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1909398/posts
“I wonder which factions are propping him up in the polls?”
That is exactly what I have been wondering. Is it that the public just isn’t fully aware of where he has taken stands before? Or, don’t they care anymore? It has me scrachin my nogdin!
I just know that I won’t vote for him for my big three reasons:
(1) His pro-abortion stands
(2) His pro-homosexual stands
(2) His anti-2nd Ammendment stands
Those are my big three, with other issues not as significant to me. I cannot vote for him in a general election because on these issues key to me, he is really no different than Mrs. Clinton.
Fred, I keep asking the same question - what will happen if Rudy gets the nomination and THEN it becomes known that he is a bisexual?
Pretty much my list as well. It will be interesting to see what happens in the polls by Friday.
bump
The “Stop Rudy” ping list!
E-mail/ping me if you want on/off the list! SPREAD THE WORD!!!
Gun Control - according to Rudy911, it is the single greatest achievement of his Mayorship.
This “hit piece” almost seems to be a tactical move to help sell Rudy to the rest of the country. Not playing well in New York isn’t a bad thing to have said about you. It won’t work, though.
All I can say is this....I am pro life , but its to bad Rudy`s mother did not have freedom of choice....Hillary`s mother as well.
before = for
If Rudedog has lost his cross over appeal, his “electability” arguement goes out the window.
So basically you are saying that Rudy is Hillary but in a dress?
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