Republicans Should not choose New York City as site of 2004 convention

The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of personal freedoms, lower taxes and less government. With that being said the Republicans should NOT choose New York City as the site of the 2004 Convention because of the current & potential anti-freedom legislation promoted by the Mayor Mike Bloomberg that goes against everything the Republicans are supposed to stand for.

So far Mike Bloomberg has proposed and/or implemented an 18.5% hike in property taxes (and he originally wanted the hike to be 25%), The insane and unreasonable taxes on cigarettes that has already put many small businesses into bankruptcy and made black marketeers rich, Draconian laws banning the choice of the individual business owner to allow smoking on their private property (including restaurants, outdoor cafes, Bars, Pool halls, Bingo Parlors and even private clubs) and further smoking bans on beaches and in parks (Due to Bloomberg crazy war on smokers Delegates, Their family members or any other person coming or who would like to come to the Convention who happen to smoke will not be welcome in NYC), Cruiseships for the Homeless, Commuter taxes and cuts to the Police & Fire Department (Which at first including salaries but was later dropped) while at the same time he implemented a living wage increase for unions of city contractors..

And he has only been the Mayor for less than one year, God only knows what he will do between now and the 2004 convention.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg with his policies has totally alienated the Republican base in New York City and around the country and he is just as unpopular with all other groups. A poll taken on 11/22/02 has his approval rating at a dismal 43% and as his policies further ruin the economy and force more small businesses to close those ratings will decline even further.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg is and was always a Liberal Democrat and he only switched to the Republican Party to get elected and the thought of him sharing the spotlight with other prominent Republican leaders like George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Rumsfeld, Marc Racicot, Etc. just sickens me. Mayor Bloomberg isn't the guy the Republicans should give a platform to but instead Republicans should be doing everything they can to distance themselves from him.

So I am urging all Republicans and all other freedom loving people to contact as many Republican leaders & groups as they can and tell them DO NOT CHOOSE NEW YORK CITY as the site of the 2004 Convention.

Rudy can go anywhere and fly a few of the fireman out to where ever they go.

The symbolism you will see in the future is smokeasys, The Bicycle, and a city in decay.

Cigarette smuggling is now going big time in NYC because of the $7.50 a pack price, It is rivaling the illegal drug trade so unfortunately it is only a matter of time before a police officer will be killed while busting up one of the rings.

A widow and children missing a parent due to Bloomberg's war on cigarettes will also be a powerful symbol the Republicans would want to avoid.

1. The Republicans probably won't pick Tampa because after Jeb's big win GW probably considers Florida now a lock for 2004.

2. We won't need Florida - it'll be in the bag, and this President very much wants to win New York in 2004.

Bush makes this assumption at his own peril, and please don't start thinking Florida will be a walk in '04. The main reason Jeb's margin was so big in November was that Bill McBride was a single-issue guy who was bought and paid for by the teacher's unions. His mission was to promote and implement a Constitutional amendment to limit class sizes (the teachers' union jobs bill, as I call it), as well as to ladle the gravy to the educrats.

McBride claimed he could provide all this teacher pork with only a cigarette tax increase , but this fell so woefully short of providing the needed funding that it didn't even pass the laugh test. When pressed on the issue, he danced all around the question. Then, in the last debate of the campaign, Tim Russert (the moderator) asked McBride how much it would cost to implement the class size amendment, and McBride didn't have a clue. The hissing sound heard statewide right after that came from all the air leaving the McBride campaign.

To give you a feel for the schizoid nature of the November election here in Flori-DUH (as the national media so fondly describe us to this day), even though Bush won, the class-size amendment passed as well : (. For that matter, so did an absolutely idiotic amendment regulating the treatment of pregnant pigs, which the animal-rights nuts foisted on a bunch of ignorant people who have never seen a live pig before, and which may well kill the entire pig farming industry in this state (which was, of course the goal, and I shudder to think which livestock industry will next fall into PETA's sights).

This is an extremely narrowly divided state, and will be for some time. The Republicans dominate the state government, but a lot of that can be attributed to the utter ineptitude of the Florida Democratic Party, which BTW just canned its chairman. Put Florida in the Republican bank at your own risk.

The have to choose between NYC, Florida and here in New Orleans.
As much as I'd love to go again. (Seeing Reagan was a lifetime thrill when the Convention was here last) I don't think they should come here either. When President Bush was here for Terrell, the new Democratic Mayor( who is a pretty good guy) didn't even greet him at the airport. I think it's unforgiveable for a Mayor of an American city to NOT greet the President when he visits, for whatever reason, party aside.
They'd probably be better off( and safer for the delegates) somewhere in Florida.

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