the Republicans: Rudy Giuliani

Stu Rothenberg has a good point today--don't write off Rudy yet:

"The crucial point is this: Giuliani didn’t fall in the national polls because Republican voters decided he doesn’t have the stuff to be president. He didn’t see his crowds thin because rank-and-file Republicans finally turned thumbs down on his more moderate social views (on abortion, gay rights or gun control). And he didn’t fall off the media’s national radar because Republicans remembered his friendship with Bernie Kerik or his messy personal life when he was still serving as mayor. Giuliani’s star dimmed during the first half of January, not because he committed a gaffe but because he made himself irrelevant. When he becomes relevant at the end of January, both voters and the national media will once again turn to Rudy, and that’s when he’ll have his shot."

The Republicans: "It is possible, if only just barely in some cases, to see Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, or Romney winning the nomination"

So say the editors of National Review today, following John McCain's victory in New Hampshire.
I think they're right. The question remains: around which candidate will the bulk of the conservative movement rally? Most don't think it will be Huckabee. So who will be the true anti-Huckabee? McCain? Romney? Perhaps--but don't forget Rudy Giuliani, who today makes another bid for conservative support by unveiling what he calls the largest tax cut in American history.

Is Giuliani a conservative dept

So a lot of conservatives say, when it comes to Rudy Giuliani promising to appoint strict constructionist judges or to secure our borders, that they just don't believe him. Rudy had an interesting answer to that in a recent interview with NRO's Byron York:

"I don't understand why," Giuliani told me. "Because look, if I was going to try to fool them, I would just change my positions. I would just fool them, right? I'm not suggesting anybody else has done that. So I think people should have the sense that I'm straight with them. And if they just look at my history and background, who do they think I'm going to appoint? All of my friends, all of the people I've associated with, all the people I respect, the vast majority of them would fall into the category of conservative thinkers, conservative lawyers, and strict constructionist judges."

Is Rudy Giuliani a conservative dept

The Mayor is about to step up his efforts in New Hampshire, with the focus on health care.
His message: "You and I should be making the decisions about what kind of health care we get with our doctors, not with a government bureaucrat," Giuliani says in the ad.
The mail piece echoes that message. "Rudy Giuliani's health care plan offers freedom to choose a health plan that fits your needs and the freedom to keep it if you change jobs," the flier reads, above a graphic that shows Giuliani's plan does not amount to "government mandated health insurance" or require a tax increase."

Doesn't sound too liberal to me.

A crucial moment in the presidential campaign for the Mayor

...and he just may have come through big time.
He made a major address to social conservatives today. He said things like this: "Mr. Giuliani spoke with a tone of humility, saying at one point: “I come to you today as I would if I were your president, with an open mind and an open heart, and all I ask is that you do the same. Please know this, you have absolutely nothing to fear from me.” His speech, which was frequently interrupted by applause, was peppered in the latter half with assurances that he would work to ensure that people of faith were not banished from the public square, to reduce abortion and increase adoptions, to appoint strict constructionist judges and to protect school choice, an important issue to many evangelicals. “I’ll continue to extend my hand to you,” he concluded, “and I hope you’ll take it.”

This may go down as a similar moment to that enjoyed by John F. Kennedy in 1960.
Then, many doubted that America would elect a Catholic president. But Kennedy, in a speech to a group of Protestant ministers in Houston, assured them that he was simply a presidential candidate who happened to be Catholic. It helped make him president. We'll see how this speech works out for Mr. Giuliani. Apparently even those who still oppose him were impressed by his speech.

A big endorsement for the Mayor

From the social conservative governor of Texas, Rick Perry: "Perry, who is the first governor currently in office to endorse Giuliani, was asked about supporting a candidate who had views on social issues with which he disagreed:

When I go to buy a pickup truck, if it's got one option on it that I’m either not particularly fond of or not looking for, it doesn't mean I discard that pickup truck. I'm looking at the results. And I think that's what Americans will coalesce to. They'll look to the results. What is the result of his candidacy going to be?When I talk about Rudy Giuliani will put strict constructionists on the Supreme Court, that covers a watershed of issues. It makes me comfortable that we are going to have Supreme Court justices that will look at a host of issues that are important to me as an American, to me as a governor of a large and powerful economic engine in this country, and knowing that, versus the kind of judges that Hillary Clinton will put on that Court, gives me not only great comfort that Rudy Giuliani is the right candidate, but it also kind of fires me up about the kind of work that I'm going to do for him to make sure that he, and that result, is what is at the White House, and not the alternative."

Mayor Giuliani will surely be citing this endorsement in the days and weeks to come.

The Mayor on foreign policy

Candidate Giuliani gives a major foreign policy speech today. I especially agree with this: "You have to stand up to dictators, to tyrants, to terrorists. Weakness invites attack. Strength keeps you safe," he said. "You cannot negotiate with someone who is threatening to destroy you and your family. This is the great fallacy in this now very strong Democratic desire to negotiate, negotiate, negotiate and negotiate," he said. "You've got to know with whom to negotiate and with whom you should not negotiate."

And this: "Mr. Giuliani told Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, who justified his pledge to negotiate with enemy leaders by pointing to Mr. Reagan's negotiations with Soviet leaders, that he got his history wrong. "I say this most respectfully — you're not Ronald Reagan," he said. "Here's what Ronald Reagan did before he negotiated with the communists. First, he called them the 'Evil Empire.' Then he took missiles — he put them in European cities, and he pointed the missiles at Russian cities with names on them. And then he said, in his very nice way, 'Let's negotiate,' ..." Mr. Giuliani said, drawing waves of laughter and applause."

Maybe the mayor has been reading my blog regarding Obama and Reagan. Good for him!

Is Giuliani a real conservative dept

From today's NY Post: "I believe we are reaching out very, very well to Republicans. The emphasis is on fiscal conservatism, which brings Republicans together."
The Giuliani campaign also released his conservative record in cutting taxes, crime and welfare and fighting to remove smut from Times Square."

Yeah, s0unds like a real liberal to me.

Rudy Giuliani on guns

So it's taken as a given in the mainstream media, and among Giuliani opponents, that Rudy Giuliani has this big disconnect with the Republican base concerning the right to bear arms. It's assumed that Giuliani is anti-gun or favors "gun control." Here's one example, and here's another. But is this really true? I did a little research. And I don't think it's true at all. Yes, as mayor of New York, Giuliani I suppose took steps that one could characterize as "gun control" measures. But that was to satisfy a liberal constituency, to be able to get re-elected in a very liberal environment, and to deal with unique problems. What does Rudy say he'd do now, if he became president?

Let's see. Here we see that all the way back in 2000, Giuliani hardly sounded like someone pushing strict gun control. Quote: "I do not think the government should cut off the right to bear arms. My position for many years has been that just as a motorist must have a license, a gun owner should be required to have one as well. Anyone wanting to own a gun should have to pass a written exam that shows that they know how to use a gun, that they’re intelligent enough and responsible enough to handle a gun. Should both handgun and rifle owners be licensed...we’re talking about all dangerous weapons." Giuliani, quoted in the Boston Globe, p. A4 Mar 21, 2000.

Okay. So what's he saying now, in his campaign for president? In February of this year (details here) we find: "Rudy Giuliani addressed a potentially troublesome issue with conservative voters, saying his policies as mayor to get handguns off the street helped reduce crime in New York. "I used gun control as mayor," he said at a news conference Saturday during a swing through California. But "I understand the Second Amendment. I understand the right to bear arms." Doesn't sound like someone who, as president, is going to push serious gun control. At all.

Furthermore: here we find a transcript of an interview Giuliani had earlier this year with conservative talk show host Sean Hannity, where the issue of gun control was raised explicitly. Here's some of the questions, and Giuliani's responses (an original, partial transcript is here):


HANNITY: Let me move on. And the issue of guns has come up a lot. When people talk about Mayor Giuliani, New York City had some of the toughest gun laws in the entire country. Do you support the right of people to carry handguns?
GIULIANI: I understand the Second Amendment. I support it. People have the right to bear arms. When I was mayor of New York, I took over at a very, very difficult time. We were averaging about 2,000 murders a year, 10,000...
HANNITY: You inherited those laws, the gun laws in New York?
GIULIANI: Yes, and I used them. I used them to help bring down homicide. We reduced homicide, I think, by 65-70 percent. And some of it was by taking guns out of the streets of New York City.
So if you're talking about a city like New York, a densely populated area like New York, I think it's appropriate. You might have different laws other places, and maybe a lot of this gets resolved based on different states, different communities making decisions. After all, we do have a federal system of government in which you have the ability to accomplish that.
HANNITY: So you would support the state's rights to choose on specific gun laws?
GIULIANI: Yes, I mean, a place like New York that is densely populated, or maybe a place that is experiencing a serious crime problem, like a few cities are now, kind of coming back, thank goodness not New York, but some other cities, maybe you have one solution there and in another place, more rural, more suburban, other issues, you have a different set of rules.
HANNITY: But generally speaking, do you think it's acceptable if citizens have the right to carry a handgun?
GIULIANI: It's not only -- I mean, it's part of the Constitution. People have the right to bear arms. Then the restrictions of it have to be reasonable and sensible. You can't just remove that right. You've got to regulate, consistent with the Second Amendment.

So: is this a candidate who agrees with the NRA on every single issue? Perhaps not. But is this the statements of a candidate who's anti-gun, someone who as president would heavily push for gun control? Come on. The answer is no. Giuliani has made himself clear on this, and it's time everyone recognized it.

All in Rudy's family

So in New Hampshire yesterday, candidate Rudy Giuliani was asked about the difficulties within his family--his messy divorce, the fact that he is at least somewhat estranged from two of his children. A quote: "Giuliani has a daughter who has indicated support for Democrat Barack Obama and a son who said they didn't speak for some time. His ugly divorce from their mother, Donna Hanover, was waged publicly while Giuliani was mayor of New York. Giuliani has since remarried. Answering questions at a town-hall meeting, Giuliani was asked why he should expect loyalty from GOP voters when his children aren't backing him. "I love my family very, very much and will do anything for them. There are complexities in every family in America," Giuliani said calmly and quietly. "The best thing I can say is kind of, 'leave my family alone, just like I'll leave your family alone.'"

Hmmm. Makes sense to me. Giuliani's questioner wasn't so sure: "The questioner, Derry mother Katherine Prudhomme-O'Brien, opened by thanking Giuliani for how he handled the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and introduced him to her 5-year-old daughter, Abby, who was playing on the floor next to the platform where Giuliani stood. Prudhomme-O'Brien, 36, wasn't certain about Giuliani's answer. "If a person is running for president, I would assume their children would be behind them." she said. "If they're not, you've got to wonder."
She said the issue is a question mark that is "going to stay there for a lot of people."

Hmmm. But should it? Many Democrats today still revere John F. Kennedy. But we know the family problems he had---he had endless affairs with other women, embarrassing his wife, Jacqueline. Many Democrats still revere Bill Clinton---the problems he caused for HIS family have been well-documented. Many Republicans still revere Ronald Reagan; yet he had serious differences with his son Ron and with his daughter Patti; and he was divorced.

Giuliani's problems with various members of his family are not new. They existed when he was mayor of New York. Yet it didn't keep him, not in the least, from doing a superb job as mayor--see the aftermath of 9/11. As a nation, in the past, as long as your family troubles don't keep you from doing your job, then we've given candidates a pass. Do we really want to change that now? And let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Mildly wrong on conservatism and Giuliani

In a recent edition of the Washington Post, from an article on the Republican presidential campaign in New Hampshire in advance of the state's approaching primary, there was this, from a typical New Hampshire voter on the candidacy of Rudy Giuliani: "Don't think he has a chance," Cloutier said as his 12-year-old daughter dug into a stack of pancakes and interrupted to offer her seventh-grade observations about Giuliani. "I think he did a great job when he was in New York," the elder Cloutier said. But the fact that the candidate has been married three times is being used against him, he said, adding: "If you push that to conservatives, that is going to be a factor. It's unfortunate."

Falsehood. Not true. The Republican Party is simply not as exclusionary on social issues as many think. And I can prove it. Look: take Ronald Reagan. Yes, in 1980 Reagan was against abortion. But people forget, Reagan was divorced. As governor of California, he signed into law what at the time was one of the most liberal abortion laws in its history. Were social issues what elected Reagan in 1980? No--the most important issues in that campaign were taxes, increasing the defense budget, and being tough on the Soviet Union. But he won the Republican nomination. Take George H.W. Bush. Yes, in 1988 the elder Bush was against abortion. But that wasn't what elected him--what pushed him over the top was his "no new taxes" pledge and the strong economy (and what was fatal to him was his alienation of the Republican base when he broke his no-tax pledge--it didn't matter that he remained anti-abortion). In 2000, , yes, George W. Bush opposed abortion. But he ran mainly on an anti-tax, education reform, end-the-era-of-Clinton-scandals platform; that was mainly what he talked about.

This is not to say that social issues mean nothing or that conservatives no longer care about them (Giuliani's statements that he hates abortion and would nominate strict-constructionist judges, and his playing up his attacks on crime and pornography while mayor of New York, despite his belief that the government shouldn't ban abortion, is testament to that). But it does mean that Republicans and conservatives aren't and haven't been one issue voters, and as I've argued before, this is very consistent with traditional conservatism (Russell Kirk had six "canons" of conservatism way back when--not one.) Conservatives need to continue to emphasize this point. The idea that a Giuliani simply CAN'T win the Republican nomination is false, and really those who argue it's true are slandering Republicans by falsifying the party's history and damning them as exclusionary Puritans. Enough!