(Adulterer, flip-flopper) Giuliani asks Values Voters to trust him

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, walking into a political lion’s den, told the year’s largest gathering of social conservatives that he is “not always the best example of faith” but that their similarities are much greater than their differences.

“Isn’t it better that I tell you what I really believe instead of changing all my positions?” Giuliani told an audience of 2,000 at the Family Research Council's Values Voters Summit at a Washington hotel. “I believe trust is more important than 100 percent agreement.”

The audience, generally hostile to Giuliani, recognized the shot at former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and laughter and a few cheers spread across the room.

The former mayor, who left the stage grinning amid applause after his 40-minute speech, went for an authenticity contrast with Romney, substituting his law and order credentials for the family values emphasis of Romney, a long-married father of five.

Giuliani paid obeisance to the group’s concerns by speaking at length about his support for school choice, home schooling, conservative judges and Israel.

All drew earnest – even enthusiastic – applause. He also gave a detailed plan for reducing abortions and increasing adoptions, the meatiest policy element of his speech.

It was the “everything but” approach – he could agree with the audience on almost everything except whether a woman should be able to choose an abortion, which he supports.

"You and I know I’m not a perfect person,” he said. “I pray for forgiveness, I pray for strength.... I feel my faith deeply, although perhaps more privately than others, because of the way I was brought up.” He said he had prayed to God at the toughest parts of his life.

“During our lives, at some time, all of us need forgiveness,” he added. “If we expect perfection from our political leaders, we’re just asking for disappointment .... We lose trust when they’re not honest with us.... I don’t always agree with myself. [Laughter] … You’ll always know where I stand.... I will continue to extend my hand to you. I hope you’ll take it.”

Giuliani showed humor, noting that he almost entered seminary: “I know that’s hard to believe.” Noting that he attended Catholic school, he said the first school he attended where a prayer wasn’t said at the beginning of the day was the New York University School of Law.

He said that on the first day, out of confusion, he made the sign of the cross. “I looked around and realized people were staring at me,” he joked.

Giuliani pointed out that as New York mayor, he reduced murder, drugs, prostitution and other vices. "I don't believe in inevitable decline," he said, adding he shares President Ronald Reagan's belief in optimism.

"You put Republican ideas into action.... We got results. Humbly, I would say, the best results anyone in that time got in government."

"We drove pornography out of Times Square and other public spaces," he said, drawing hearty applause. "The pornographers lost and they were driven out of Times Square."

“We’ve got to find a way to be more inclusive,” Giuliani said. “Christianity is all about inclusiveness. It’s built around the most profound act of love in human history, isn’t it? … I’m running for president of the United States because I believe I can bring us together. Strong leadership can help us find common solutions to our problems.”

Giuliani drew laughter by saying he spends as little time in Washington as possible: “I’m afraid there’s something in the air here.”

“I’m not going to pretend that I can be all things to all people,” he declared. “I’m just not like that.”

But he added, in another dig at Romney, “I’ll always be honest with you.... You will always know where I stand.”

“You have absolutely nothing to fear from me,” Giuliani went on, adding that he was puzzled by those who make him out to be some kind of liberal activist: “Just read any New York Times editorial when I was mayor of New York City.” That got a big laugh.

Giuliani was speaking to one of the most conservative audiences in American politics. During a Christian worship service from the podium an hour before Giuliani spoke, leader Ron Freeman interspersed the praise hymn “Blessed be the Name” with the hopeful wish:

“We’ve got the right Senate and the Congress!” The prayer included: “We’ve tried hard to make your agenda, our agenda.”

Baloney.

I like how Cogamer had to say it, so once again I’m stealing it:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1909436/posts?page=158#152

some people on this board are PUSHING it. They not only expect us to grin and tolerate it, they expect us to help!! They see conservatives being marginalized, and then bash conservatives for not supporting the politicians who are marginalizing them. It’s insane!

Let’s look at this through the prism of other movements: Would pro-choice women vote for a politician who announced he wanted to make abortion illegal? Would black voters ever support a politician who wanted to bring back segregation? Would muslims ever support a candidate who was on the record as saying islam was evil?

Would their friends even TRY to tell them they HAD to vote for these candidates even if they didn’t want to?

No! But conservatives are expected to vote for anyone who has an R after their name, no matter how dangerous to the movement, just to avoid the ire of a bunch of wishy-washy phonies whose only brush with conservatism is the fact that they post to this website.

They need to understand - if they nominate Rudy, THEY are responsible for what follows. THEY know many will refuse to support him. So, turning their flawed logic on its head : If they support Rudy, they must actually want Hillary to win. Indeed - if Hillary changed parties they’d be telling us we had to support HER to stop OBAMA!!!!

152 posted on 10/10/2007 6:28:13 PM PDT by COgamer
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If we DON’T take down this tootyfruityrudy candidacy, the republican party will fall into obscurity the same way the Whig party did, and for very similar reasons.

Total hyperbole. Rudy would be fine as President, and at least he speaks the king’s English well. Your doomsday scenario is not warranted and based on no fact. Rudy did a great job in NY in cleaning up crime, taking care of day to day business of running a city, lowered taxes, and of course displayed great leadership during 9/11. If he did no more than that kind of work as Prez he would be doing quite well. Rudy said he would do no harm to the conservative point of view. Now, any of the candidates can be lying to us and any or most of them will probably lurch to the center when running in the general, but that we have no control over, just as what happened with Bush. Bush is next to a RINO now. It’s a crap shoot. But Rudy will not ruin the Presidency any more than any of the candidates might. Look what we’ve got now. Just about anything will be an improvement.

The primary issue against Giuliani is abortion. But the fact is that the only difference between Bush and Giuliani on abortion is that Bush says he would like to get rid of it, and Giuliani says otherwise. Neither one of them has done squat on the subject except talk, and as president, neither could do any more or less.

The anti-abortion people have utterly failed in their job of convincing enough of the general population to oppose abortion. Without that, then the status quo will remain.

Voting for pro-life Bush was a worthless gesture regarding abortion. Giuliani says he wants strict-constructionist judges, and there are plenty of other reasons besides abortion to want that. So I take him at his word.

This whole bruhaha litmus test about abortion is much to do about nothing. The pro-life people have to do their job first, and then both parties will beat a path to an anti-abortion amendment, or whatever it takes to get rid of it. Until then, they should quit waisting their time and money on partisan politics and spend their time convincing the populace to oppose abortion. Until they succeed in that, they're merely getting in the way of other worthwhile conservative issues.

doomsday scenario is not warranted and based on no fact. Rudy did a great job in NY in cleaning up crime, taking care of day to day business of running a city, lowered taxes, and of course displayed great leadership during 9/11.

On Giuliani and taxes:

---"Over the objections of a furious Mayor Giuliani and city legislators from both parties, the New York state legislature has abolished the New York City commuter tax. The action, done to apparently affect a local legislative race in suburban Rockland County, could cost New York City $360 million. NPR's Margot Adler reports."--- NPR Report

---"Let's face it: Rudy Giuliani argued for the reinstatement of the tax,..."--- NY Sun report [Giuliani] says ruling out a tax increase is "political pandering." Newsday, August 31, 1989

"when I ran for Mayor both times, I was asked very, very often to do the following: Pledge that you will never raise taxes. I refused to do that. Pledge that you will lower taxes. I refused to do that." -- Rudy Giuliani, New York Times, October 25, 1994

Mr. Giuliani criticized Mr. Pataki’s proposal to cut taxes as “a shell game” that would hurt everyone in the state… -- New York Times, October 30, 1994

On 9/11 leadership

After the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 when Giuliani became mayor, he was criticized for not fully implementing a single recommendation made by the fire department official who identified crucial emergency response failures. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 10/1/06

GIULIANI FAILED TO PREPARE NEW YORK AFTER 1993 WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACK * Giuliani Decided to Put Emergency Command Center in Vulnerable World Trade Center. Giuliani, who became mayor after the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, according to Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins’ “Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11,” made “the infamous decision to place the city’s emergency command center on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center because he didn’t want to schlep to a more secure, better-protected Brooklyn location from City Hall. When the planes hit the trade center, OEM’s bunker-in-the- clouds was rendered useless, and Giuliani was forced to embark on his dusty journey through lower Manhattan, scattering the city’s command structure.” [South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), 10/1/06]

* Giuliani Failed to Put In A Clear Chain of Command for Emergency Workers. “Giuliani and his top aides did not put in place a clear chain of command for police officers and firefighters.” [Washington Post, 8/17/06]

On Giuliani and Running The City(Sanctuary city, Government Spending):

Immigration politics have similarly harmed New York. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani sued all the way up to the Supreme Court to defend the city’s sanctuary policy against a 1996 federal law decreeing that cities could not prohibit their employees from cooperating with the INS. Oh yeah? said Giuliani; just watch me. The INS, he claimed, with what turned out to be grotesque irony, only aims to “terrorize people.” Though he lost in court, he remained defiant to the end. On September 5, 2001, his handpicked charter-revision committee ruled that New York could still require that its employees keep immigration information confidential to preserve trust between immigrants and government. Six days later, several visa-overstayers participated in the most devastating attack on the city and the country in history.

Mr. Giuliani said the surplus from the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30, is projected to be $856 million, a record amount caused largely by higher-than-expected tax revenues from robust profits on Wall Street. He said for the first time that he wanted to use $99 million of that money to help the city adapt to the new strict Federal welfare rules by paying for child care, job training and other programs. Source: New York Times, Clifford Levy, 5/9/97

iuliani allowed spending to increase significantly faster than inflation during four of his last five years in office - and another big increase was in store for fiscal 2002 before the World Trade Center attack forced the city into an austerity mode. Source: FISCALWATCH MEMO July 20, 2004

According to New York's Independent Budget Office, total budgeted expenditures grew from $31.8 billion in 1995 (Rudy's first budget year) to $44.6 billion in 2003, an increase of 40.3%. By comparison, the inflation rate from January 1995 to January 2003 was 20.89% according to this inflation rate calculator. Thus, New York City's spending under Rudy grew at a rate twice that of inflation.

Perhaps the biggest difference is on fiscal issues. Giuliani, who lost interest in curtailing the growth of city government in his latter years, left behind a fiscal catastrophe—a $6.4 billion deficit proportionately bigger than the hole that caused the 1975 fiscal shortfall. --- Jacob Weisberg, Slate magazine 2/21/07

c'mon, P...you're a smart, reasonable guy. You know what the intention of using the comparison is. It's a pejorative and it's plainly inflammatory.

I'm not arguing the point to be contentious or simply to pick a fight. I, honestly, find it offensive.

From a personal perspective, I remember sitting with my grandmother, and her telling me "stories".. about her family. Aside from her parents, she had 11 siblings, most of whom were married with families. They were all wiped out by the Nazis. They didn't even make it to the death camps.

So, hopefully, you'll understand why I am sensitive to, and take a very dim view of, a comparison that really doesn't have any basis in fact.

Nazism and Fascism were a doctrine, a policy, that can't be conveyed by comparison to any one act or failure to act.

Anyway, as I said, I'm not looking to be contentious or pick a fight. That is my perspective. Have a good evening and take care.

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