Free Republic

Today I have seen the future and that future is President Rudy. It's not that I'm voting for Rudy, but the vacuum to be filled has been filled. Consider this: Rudy Giuliani and Tony Snow are the only guys who have had to have fire marshals bar people from entering due to overcapacity in a very big room. In the green room, Giuliani's speech was the only one to cause everyone to sit down, shut up and watch. More and more, the conservatives at CPAC are realigning. You have the Brownback folks, the Mitt folks, and the people who are...

I've never voted for Rudy Giuliani in my life. But I'm thinking hard about it now. In both cases, I surprise myself. The rest of America may know Rudy as "America's Mayor" for his ceremonial performance post-9/11, but for New Yorkers who lived through the Dinkins years, Rudy Giuliani is more than a guy who stands tall when the skyscrapers fall. By the late '90s, people were beginning to say that New York City was ungovernable: Remember the court-driven interest group spending, the disorder, the bums taking over the parks and the playgrounds and the street corners, spiraling welfare costs,...

In a move to increase its relevance in the presidential selection process, the Golden State is set to jump up its primary from June of 2008 to February 5th, less than a year away. This may benefit New York's presidential aspirants, and especially its Republican one. Last week I noted Giuliani's electric support at the California Republican Party convention. A recent poll has resoundingly brought forth the same message. This morning, the Wall Street Journal's John Fund notes the following numbers: With California moving its presidential primary to Feb. 5 of next year, what Golden State voters think about White...

ONLY a few months ago, conventional wisdom throughout much of the political world was that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani might make a competitive Republican candidate for president in a general election, but he could never win his party's nomination because conservative primary voters would reject him. Now, suddenly, that wisdom seems to have shifted, and as Giuliani trouped through California last week, he was wowing conservatives with his charisma, his gift for sounding spontaneous on the stump and his call for bold national leadership. "Rudy" - as he is known everywhere - has already been accepted as one...

Long dismissed by Washington insiders as incapable of receiving the Republican Party's presidential nomination because of his pro-abortion rights, pro-gay rights and pro-gun control views, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was lavished with praise Friday by an icon of American conservatism. "He is much stronger than anyone could have predicted six months ago," said former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich from Georgia. "New York is four times safer than it used to be. It's one of the greatest achievements of government capability in the 20th century. And Rudy just has to go out and say, 'This is who...

As I often do I checked Hugh's page first thing this morning. I saw his post where he takes a fellow Salem Colleague Dr. Richard Land to task for his observations on the possibility of a Guiliani general election candidacy. Hugh believes that it is an impossibility that social conservatives would sit out a general election match-up that featured Rudy Guiliani. Dr. Land disagrees. Hugh believes that his experiences speaking in front of audiences and conducting surveys of the audience is giving him a better barometer of the assessment on the ground than Land's perspective as an activist. I've seen...

Just as the title says.

. . . and, without mentioning President Bush by name, offered pointed criticism on how the Iraq war has been handled . . . He said that the United States went to war with far too few forces and was wrong to dismantle Saddam Hussein’s military and government, and he conceded that if more information had been available about Iraq’s weapons, Congress never would have approved the war.

A Giuliani Fundraising Mailer The Rudy Giuliani Exploratory Cmte. sent out fundraising letters on 2/5. In a letter, Giuliani paints himself as Reagan 2.0, quoting the fmr. pres. as saying "The future belongs to the free." Giuliani: "Today, as Republicans, we need to restore that optimistic spirit to our party and to the national political debate that is shaping the future of this great nation." Giuliani writes that he believes the GOP is the "party of freedom" and then lays out the party platform of low taxes, small gov't, entitlement reform, and school choice, and then lists his GOP record...

As a presidential candidate, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is for real. Despite his unorthodox Republicanism — his support for legal abortion, his embrace of gun-control, and his unwillingness to act against court-imposed same-sex marriages — Giuliani now leads in several polls for the GOP nomination. The common wisdom is that most Republican voters know nothing of Rudy’s social liberalism, and so his support will dwindle as they learn more. But this may prove wrong. Knowledgeable folks on the Right, disheartened by a presidential field that lacks viable, trustworthy conservatives, are talking themselves into supporting the man who...

I don't often like to write articles that attack the media. I understand that the bottom line is ratings and I'm comfortable with that. I understand that certain stations have biases and I have no problem with that either. However, for some reason in almost every form of media, Rudy Giuliani is misunderstood. The common quote from anyone is the media is that he is pro choice, anti gun, pro gay and has been divorced twice, so how the hell is he leading the Republican field? Well, there are two reasons. The simple reason which I don't want to spend...

The book on Rudy Giuliani is that he is too liberal on social issues to win the Republican presidential nomination. Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, put it succinctly: "I don't see anyone getting the Republican nomination who is not pro-life and a staunch defender of traditional marriage." But Mr. Giuliani is running strong in Iowa and New Hampshire polls and leading most national surveys of Republicans. He's charming crowds of conservatives everywhere he goes. So it's worth wondering if Mr. Perkins is missing an undercurrent coursing through conservative politics. Republicans have just experienced a bruising midterm election...

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, still basking in his can-do post-Sept. 11 image, got a rousing welcome yesterday from Republican activists searching for a presidential candidate who can win in California. No Republican presidential candidate has carried California since the elder George Bush did in 1988, and no one has even run a competitive race in the increasingly Democratic-leaning state since then. Republicans are hopeful they have prospects in the large 2008 field who can reverse the trend by combining liberal and conservative stands that has proven so successful for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. “The popularity of the governor shows...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - New Hampshire residents likely to vote in the Republican presidential primary a year from now think more highly of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani than any of his rivals, a poll released Tuesday shows. ADVERTISEMENT Giuliani's net favorability rating — the proportion of people viewing him favorably minus the proportion viewing him unfavorably — was 56 percent, well ahead of Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), 32 percent, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 26 percent, in the University of New Hampshire poll for WMUR-TV in Manchester."He's the lesser-known candidate, but he has that rock...

In 1993 it became obvious that if Rudy was to avenge his narrow defeat for Mayor four years earlier, he would need more Democratic voters to cross party lines and support him. His campaign strategists knew I was disenchanted with the incumbent and put a full court press on me to meet with Giuliani. I was the elected head of the Democratic Party in a large Democratic district whose vote could be pivotal if it turned out for the I met him and we talked for about an hour. He impressed me then as he does now with his intelligence,...

Giuliani Strikes a Note With California GOP Testing the Waters, Former N.Y. Mayor Garners 4 Ovations SACRAMENTO, Feb. 10 -- Rudolph W. Giuliani came west to learn whether his brand of Republican politics has a chance among party members significantly more conservative than himself. By the time he had received a fourth standing ovation Saturday at the California Republican Party convention, the answer seemed clear. Equating the U.S. fight against terrorism with the Civil War and the Cold War, Giuliani told about 750 of his party's faithful that failure in Iraq would turn that country into a "massive headquarters for...

} When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speak at the California Republican Convention this weekend, some party leaders from Solano County will be there and listening carefully. Approximately 1,300 delegates from across the state are expected to fill the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Sacramento beginning today through Sunday. Among them will be Mike Gomez, the chair of the Solano County Republican Party Central Committee, and Lynda Rose McMahan, chair of Solano Republican Women's Federated. A busy itinerary awaits the group in the state capital, including the selection of new party leadership. Gomez said one...

A new year brings many things. It is a time of renewal and of new beginnings. In the world of politics, especially after an election year, it is a time to celebrate last year's victories, analyze last year's defeats and gear up for the battles to come. 2007 is even more important because the election cycle that has begun will culminate in the election of the next president on November 4, 2008. 2008 will be the most open presidential campaign since 1928 in that the current president is not up for re-election and his vice president is not running to...

[snip] Giuliani transformed a city whose budget and workforce were larger than those of all but five or six states. He and police chief William Bratton famously cracked down first on quality of life crimes like panhandling and public urination. Teenagers who leaped over the turnstiles at subway entrances were arrested — a departure from the practice under Mayor David Dinkins. Giuliani later quipped that the police under his predecessor had become "highly skilled observers of crime." Those turnstile jumpers turned out to possess a huge number of illegal guns, which were confiscated, and criminals throughout the city discovered that...

Rudy's Run By The Editors Rudy Giuliani is a compelling candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2008. He saved New York City, by restoring law and order and breaking with the disastrous urban liberalism of the 1970s. He will forever be honored for his leadership after the 9/11 attacks. And his effective, no-nonsense management style and straight-talking persona are enormously appealing. Our colleague John Podhoretz is correct when he points out that conservatives want to like Giuliani, and we would add that there is a lot to like. But there are serious obstacles to Giuliani’s winning the embrace...