Posted on 04/17/2007 12:22:58 PM PDT by pissant
The conventional wisdom about presidential nomination campaigns is almost always wrong. And the pundits' dismissal of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani's bid for the Republican nomination will not improve their batting average. Even though Giuliani is way ahead of everybody in early primary polls, the experts are already writing Giuliani's obituary.
Some of this spin is wishful thinking by Democrats who don't want to face him in the general election. Other than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), he is better known and more popular than anyone running for president, even Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). And Giuliani has a better chance than any other GOP candidate to turn blue states red. Depending on the Democratic presidential nominee, he could put into play states like New York, New Jersey and California that are normally off-limits to Republicans.
The rap on Giuliani is that he is a great prospect for winning the general election but has almost no chance to win the GOP nod because of his personal history and his stands on issues such as gun control and gay marriage. But there are at least a couple of reasons why he could go all the way and come out of the Republican National Convention in Minnesota as king of the hill.
First, GOP primary voters, especially born-again Christians, are so horrified at the prospect of Clinton becoming president that they would nominate the devil if they thought it would keep her out of the White House. The stronger Clinton becomes in her bid for the Democratic nomination, the better Giuliani will look to the religious fundamentalists on the Republican side who descend on the Iowa caucuses by the busload.
In backing the most electable candidate, Republican voters would be following a long history of calculation and pragmatic voting in presidential primary campaigns. In 2004, Democrats were so eager to block the reelection of President Bush that they voted with their heads for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), rather than with their hearts for former Vermont governor Howard Dean.
We may finally get the dream race that everybody wanted in 2000, when then-mayor Giuliani was ready to run against then-first lady Clinton for the U.S. Senate in New York, until fate and the mayor's former wife Donna Hanover intervened.
The other factor that could propel Giuliani to victory in the Republican race is that voters, even primary voters, care more about qualities like leadership and strength than they do about the positions the candidates take on issues. In this context, the reputation for strength that Giuliani built after the Sept. 11 attacks should serve him well in his campaign to win the approval of GOP voters.
To the extent that any single issue will be a factor in voting decisions, national security will trump anything else. No Republican candidate projects the strength that a president needs to stand up to the bad guys like the one who claims that he rid New York City of thugs and saved the city from ruin on the worst day of its proud history.
As Giuliani prepares to officially announce his candidacy, he appears to be softening his position on gays and guns to appeal to the born-again Christian wing of the GOP. He said recently that gun control was good for New York City but might not work nationally. Despite his friendships with gay couples, Giuliani also announced that he was opposed to same-sex marriage. But fudging the issues is a mistake for Giuliani, because renouncing long-held beliefs undermines the reputation he has for strength and integrity.
Democratic activists are afraid of Giuliani, and Republican diehards fear him, as well. But the Bush presidency is slowly sinking into the sunset and Giuliani is the GOP's best bet to hang on to the White House.
(Brad Bannon is president of Bannon Communications Research, a Democratic polling firm in Washington).
ROFLMAO...... what else are you today, Mayor of Dublin?! :P
Gee! What a profound statement. If politics is only about winning elections, then why are we quibbling? All we have to do is vote for Hillary and we'll win the election. DUH! Why would any of us care what her policies are (or Rudy's for that matter?)
Lawn Guyland Cream Puffs like Rudy deserve to have the levers of power less than a Brownie Troop.
“If Rudy is the GOP’s only hope, then it is time for them to officially merge with the Democrats and quit even pretending...”
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If Rudy is our only hope, we are without hope.
All we have to do is vote for Hillary and we’ll win the election?
I was responding to the big thinkers who will stay home from the election and/or vote some turd party.
That’s irrelevant in light of the article I pinged you to.
The leftists love Rudy, they know he is a political gimp who, if by some miracle DID win, would nod like a bobblehead to their agenda.
APf
“Does anyone think that Giuliani is over rated?”
Just the opposite. Most people on these threads don’t appreciate his actual achievments. They are only familiar with his performance on 9/11—or his performance as mayor of New York. But long before he made one of the most crime-ridden cities in America one of the safest (the murder rate alone dropped 67% because of his innovative leadership), and long before he put a city drowning in red ink in the black, he had made his mark as a US Attorney—first, by breaking the back of organized crime, sending the heads of the Mob families to prison for long terms; second, by being a major force in cleaning up Wall Street, convicting, among others, insider trader Ivan Boesky and junk bond dealer Michael Milken; and third, by destroying New York’s notorious political machine, sending some of its most corrupt bosses to prison. In fact, Rudy’s career is vastly UNDER-rated.
“Rudy would not even carry New York.”
No but right now he’s ahead in NJ, PA, FL, CT, RI and MI. The fact that he leads in FL and PA is especially significant. Nor is it a coincidence that these states are heavily populated by Italian-Americans, most of whom would vote for Rudy. And even in very liberal NY, he’d give Hillary a huge run for the money. This is because Italian-American representation in the Northeast and FL is considerable, certainly enough to give him an edge in the election when this is coupled with his very high favorabilities everywhere in the nation. He’s now running ahead of Hillary in FL by double digits, for instance. And in OH, where the Republican Party has all but collapsed, Rudy is running neck-and-neck with Hillary. Here’s the breakdown of the numbers of Italian-Americans in these states, including the percentages they represent:
Rhode Island 199,077 19.0%
Connecticut 634,364 18.6%
New Jersey 1,503,637 17.9%
New York 2,737,146 14.4%
Massachusetts 860,079 13.5%
Pennsylvania 1,418,465 11.6%
Delaware 72,677 9.3%
New Hampshire 105,610 8.5%
Nevada 132,515 6.6%
Florida 1,003,977 6.3%
Vermont 38,835 6.4%
Ohio 675,749 6.0%
Illinois 744,274 6.0%
Maryland 267,573 5.1%
California 1,450,000 5%
Michigan 450952, 4.5.%
These are among the major states and represents about 10% of all voters—about equal to the black vote, though it’s even more concentrated in key states. Many, like FL and PA, are battleground states. California has an Italian-American population of around 1.4 million, though percentage-wise, given the size of the population, it is not above 5%. But Rudy’s appeal there as a moderate Republican is much like Arnold’s. He is polling amazingly well there. In fact no other Republican does as well and he could very well take the state. At the very least—as with New Tork—he would force Hillary to spend big bucks there.
“I would hold on to your hat there bud...Senator Thompson will break the sound barrier with the thud the rest of the candidates will feel when the Man says ‘I’m in.’”
Running a southerner as our candidate makes no political sense. Thompson would win not a single blue or purple state. Not one. But unless we can win a few of these states, we lose. Why? Because the Dems have outregistered Republicans by 15% all across the nation. They have more money this time around. They have the media’s full support. They have the monolithic black vote and most of the Hispanic vote. They have Bush fatigue. They have red states trending leftward and becoming purple—places like OH and CO and VA. My own state, PA, is growing increasingly liberal—due to migration patterns, with more and more New Yorkers and Jerseyites looking for cheaper housing across the state line, selling their split levels for half a million and buying the same house in PA for half the price. No amount of political effort on our part will reverse these trends. Neither will a southern candidate like Thompson. Rudy is the only real antidote, a northeasterner with broad local appeal.
“The leftists love Rudy”
In fact they despise him and fought him tooth and nail in NYC when he was mayor. If you want to know who they love—check out the media’s love affair with both McCain and Thompson.
I nominate Condoleezza Rice for President.
“Conservatives don’t vote for or promote liberals.”
Speak for yourself, pal. Conservatives will vote for whoever has the best chance of winning in ‘08. Besides, Rudy’s no liberal. He’s a fiscal and law-and-order conservative with liberal views on some social issues. That makes him a moderate.
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Can you say "party over principle"?
Fiscal conservatives don't support govt funded abortions.
Rudy is a liberal with some conservative views, that makes him a RINO.
And I'm not your pal.
“If Rudy is the GOP’s only hope, then it is time for them to officially merge with the Democrats and quit even pretending...”
You got that right
“Can you say ‘party over principle’?”
No, but I can say “Party over political suicide.” If you don’t win elections, how can this support your principles? On the other hand, Rudy is ahead in many blue and purple states. Together with the mountain states and the South, he’d win in a landslide. That would translate into a GOP Congress, with Boehner and McConnell at the helm instead of Pelosi or Reid. For those of you who can’t appreciate this, a winner at the head of the ticket, whether he leans to the left or the right, would mean a BIG WIN for conservative values in the long run. Only the politically naive don’t understand this or resent it. Politics is a game of the possible. No matter how much you may prefer a Hunter or a Thompson, the name of the game is victory at the polls—or else you lose everything, the legislature, Supreme Court nominees, the Dept. of Justice, the war on terror—you name it. The stakes are too high to risk supporting losers.
I'm still not impressed.
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