Posted on 03/06/2008 10:18:38 AM PST by kingattax
John McCain is the GOP candidate for president. But who will run for Veep? One of the smartest decisions George W. Bush made was choosing Dick Cheney. Contrary to the Cheney image peddled by the hysterical Left, a sort of a projected Darth Vader on the screen of their childish nightmares, in reality Dick Cheney is wise, experienced, thoughtful, calm, humorous, and ready to step up to be president. Cheney is not a hot electoral commodity; he excels at governance.
So does Rudy Giuliani.
McCain has his pick of running mates, but Rudy stands out. He is younger than McCain, but not so much as to create a negative contrast with the presidential candidate. Having recovered from his cancer scare, Rudy can campaign vigorously. Giuliani was the best mayor New York City has had in the last fifty years, by objective standards of markedly improved economic health, lower unemployment, lower welfare rolls and much lower crime. In New York Rudy demonstrated the power of conservative ideas to fix what had become a liberal disaster area. And that was before 9/11, when he performed with real bravery and intelligence.
Rudy is very smart and well-informed, and has a good sense of humor. Like Barack Obama, he can think on his feet, but he is far wiser and more experienced than Obama. He has decades of executive experience starting in the Reagan Justice Department. He understands market economics and how it can be mobilized to enhance the general welfare. Giuliani appeals to liberal states and big cities. He successfully fought the Mafia. And he is a walking reminder of the terrorist menace. (It would be fun to see him debating a Democrat denier about the war.)
Mitt Romney comes closest to Rudy in executive experience and overall competence. But there is something off-putting about Romney, a sort of mannequin perfection that does not connect with people. That is not Romney's own fault, but I find it undeniable. Rudy has the common touch -- at least for New Yorkers.
Rudy has been unfairly slandered as being pro-abortion. That was always malicious nonsense. Giuliani is a social conservative along the lines of the Manhattan Institute, the think tank that originated many of his best ideas as mayor. He believes in families, parental authority, and the preciousness of life. His bottom line during the campaign was that he had in fact ended up reducing abortions in New York City. That is a darned good outcome in a city where the establishment is rigidly leftist. A strong anti-abortion amendment to the US Constitution is not going to pass, as a practical matter. And any moral legislation to abortion has to balance the delicate question of the mother's health against the life of the fetus.
The great abomination today is that the MTV culture has trivialized the immensely serious choice of aborting a fetus, the most agonizing moral dilemma that most of us will ever have to cope with. By trivializing life in the womb, the pro-abortion crowd has become a cult of feticide for nothing more than one's personal convenience. In those hard-to-change circumstances, Giuliani decided to go for the bottom line of saving lives. One can debate the pros and cons of that position, but it is grossly unfair to call it pro-abortion.
In sum, McCain might place Giuliani on his short list of potential running mates. We could do far worse than having Rudy Giuliani as Vice President, especially in a White House that must constantly battle the croc-infested swamplands of Washington. And in eight years, Giuliani will be as old as John McCain is today
Which party?
What a horrible, horrible idea!!! If the idiot who wrote this piece is looking for a way to guarantee that conservatives sit this election out he’s found it!
There are so many punchlines to that statement I can't stop laughing long enough to pick just one.
Rudy ends up the Veep selection and there ain't enough communism in the Dem party to scare me into voting GOP. I'll go Third party so fast my vote will leave a vapor trail.
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I hate the ‘American Thinker’.
Worst “conservative” website ever.
Uh ... that would be a bad idea. No conservative Republican would vote for that ticket.
This is a terribly terrible idea.
McCain is bad enough. Why select the worst republican candidate running this time around as the running mate?
Now how much was it that Rudy spent for how many delegates?
Sarah has 4 kids and is pregnant.
Don't think a new born baby is going to be a plus either in a campaign or in a major crisis.
She's a great lady, but Alaska is where she needs to stay.
TWO WRONGS don’t make a right.
This may get very ugly.
Don’t you guys get it? Once McCain and his buddies finally grants amnesty to the millions of illegal criminal aliens flooding the country, the Neo-Cons will never need another Conservative vote again.
Well, he could bring along all those people who once thought he was the "front-runner".
That couldn't hurt!
This guy writes for American Thinker? That’s thinker, as in thinking or thought?
And he thinks that Rudy is a Social Conservative?
I think this guy needs to go back to his local repair shop ASAP, for an oil change and a brain adjustment.
If this were to happen, it’s just another knife in the back of conservatives. Gaining the independent and on the fence voters is more important than the conservative votes.
Look, just to help you along with the thinking process:
McCain or any other top-tier candidate will not select his running mate from among his former adversaries.
Instead, he will choose someone we would never suspect, and one whose name very few of us had ever heard of before.
But that person (a man, IMO) will definitely be John McCain's "yes man".
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