Weekly Standard: Rudy Toast?

To start with an aside, if you look where blogs were on Rudy weeks ago, it'll give you an idea of where Huckabee will be in a couple weeks. Anyway, the risk is very real for Rudy and potentially irreversible for good reason.

Rudy Giuliani is fast heading toward Toast City. A new Florida poll - admittedly done by robots - has him sinking faster than a corpse dumped out of a Coup DeVille at midnight in the Meadowlands swamp.

According to USAToday he's somewhat shifting tactics back toward the early states. It's too late, his opposition mostly all have deep campaign roots and a presence there. As the new kid on the block, Rudy plays even worse and he won't be rewarded. He and Hillary ran the same campaign - national and from the front.

It was an intriguing strategy that may end up too smart by half - even with Super Dooper Tuesday on Feb. 5th. The conventional wisdom after primary 08 will likely remain just that - conventional. You have to at least compete somewhat in the early states, or disappear. Neither Rudy nor even Hillary had the star power to pull it off.

Comments

[Dave P.]

It wasn't the strategy, it was the obvious contempt for the core voters he was expecting to turn out and support him.

[el gordo]

Some accused Romney of pandering to the base. Turns out the base wants to be pandered to. Romney is smart, but Rudy is the one real guy in the race who is true to himself. In a few years those same core voters will be whining that Romney is another spineless out of touch Rino who tries to get along with liberals, has no fight in him and gets rolled by the State Department and the CIA. But they can hardly complain if they think that a man with Rudy´s record isn´t good enough. A conservative who has proved like no other candidate that he can turn around government, kick bureaucracies into shape and ignore the establishment. To put it another way: I´m for Giuliani because he is the candidate most likely to bring back John Bolton.

[DaveP.]

gun control, Sanctuary Cities, open borders, big government, manmade Global Warming, abortion, same-sex marraige...

Yep, that Guiliani has just SO much to offer me as a Republican. At least Romney has a clue how much those issues mean to me... Guiliani (D- NY) just wants me to shut up and get on the bus.

Ain't gonna happen.

I especially love his current riff on how "New York wasn't a Sanctuary City (even though I sued the Feds to keep from having to enforce immigration laws there, and was calling it a "Sanctuary City" as recently as 2001...)"

Guiliani is as much a conservative as Hilldog is, and agrees with her on most issues. He also lacks the courage to publicly stand by his actions as Mayor of NY.

[Fred Beloit]

DaveP, you make, I hate to say it, a good case. But we don't necessarily need to choose between Rino 1 and Rino 2. Or, if we want to win, do we? I hope not.

[DaveP.]

Fred, sometimes the battle isn't worth the cost. Imagine what would happen to the foundations of the party- the big issues-voter groups that are indispensible for victory- if a Republican President suddenly called for severe gun control. Or complete amnesty for illegal immigrants. Or a high-tax, big-social-program, big spending government.

No, wait- you don't have to imagine anything. You SAW what happened as a result of actions like that, with the first and the second Presidents Bush and the Republicans in the Congress who followed their leads. Here's a reminder: The word "Massacre" was used to describe the results both times, and in Bush Senior's case, the door was opened for the most corrupt candidate ever to attain the White House.

The party as a whole and the ideals it represents would be far better off with a known enemy in the White House, than with a false friend.

[el gordo]

DaveP - you shouldn´t just tick off boxes (guns, abortion etc), some of which have NOTHING to do with the presidency. You end up with a guy who tells you what you need to hear.

There is NO sign at all that Rudy stands for big government or severe gun control or open borders - just the opposite. Washington is not New York. It is a sad day when his achievements, which took COURAGE, can be turned into a liability. You know, he must ask himself why he didn´t spend the 1990s sitting in the Senate doing nothing. Then he´d be ok because all you would have is a voting record which takes nothing.

[Dave P.]

"There is NO sign at all that Rudy stands for big government or severe gun control or open borders..."

Gordo, are you for real?!

Even a cursory search for "Guiliani Gun Conrtol" turns this up:

In 1993, Giuliani met with then-President Clinton to discuss national gun registration and supported the Brady bill, which had recently passed, but Rudy argued that it didn’t go far enough. Clinton, largely crediting Giuliani for the idea, enthusiastically sent Atty. Gen. Janet Reno off to develop a gun-licensing and registration system.

In May 1994, as the battle over the ban on certain semi-automatic firearms reached its height, Giuliani threw his support behind the ban. On the eve of the final vote, he noted that so-called assault weapons “have no legitimate purpose.” When the ban passed, Giuliani commented that “this is an important step toward curtailing the indiscriminate proliferation of guns across the nation.”

When a lunatic attacked innocent civilians at the Empire State Building in 1997, Giuliani used the tragedy to again push for gun control beyond his city’s limits: “We need a federal law that bans all assault weapons, and if in fact you do need a handgun, you should be subjected to at least the same restrictions—and really stronger ones—that exist for driving an automobile. ... Congress needs to pass uniform licensing for everyone carrying a gun.”

When Rudy did focus on city gun laws, which already were among the most stringent in the country, his effort was only to further disarm the law-abiding.

In 1998, Giuliani pushed a proposal that would require gun owners to use “trigger locks” on all firearms, thus rendering the guns useless in the event of an emergency. Such a law would be enforced, he said, through “criminal penalties and the revocation of gun permits.”

If Giuliani had a federalist conversion, it did not occur in his first six years as mayor, for in 2000, he again took his gun-control show on the road.

In becoming the first GOP mayor to launch a city lawsuit against gun makers, Giuliani complained that “less restrictive gun laws in other parts of the country” exacerbated the crime problem in New York City.

found at: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19883

That's JUST the gun control issue.

If you don't feel like reading, go listen to this- Rudy on his love of illegal immigrants:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=redmtquHEuo

"...If you come here... and you happen to be an undocumented status... you're one of the people who we want in New York City... you're one of the people we want to protect..."

Now how does a man of integrity and COURAGE, as you put it, go from that declaration (and all of the others he made, right up until he started to campaign for President) to his current statements?

Go hit the Google, Gordo.
Google is your friend, Gordo.
Don't just read what Rudy's website says NOW... go find out what he was saying and doing ALL THIS TIME UNTIL NOW.

PS- What gives you the idea that where a politician stands on the issues of the day has nothing to do with his suitability for office?!

[nichevo]

Rudy will certainly have to be managed on gun control, but if a fellow hasn't even the right to change his mind, well...

As for immigration, Rudy is deserving of some understanding here. If it were not for 9/11 this would be a nonissue. Of course there was 9/11 and it is an issue, but meantime, New York is one place that benefits from illegal immigration. If they weren't wanted...not to say they wouldn't come, but they wouldn't be welcomed.

Let me put it this way: Kick out the Mexicans or don't kick out the Mexicans, but lay one finger on Chinatown and there will be trouble. And also plenty of the immigrants here are, in brief, white: that is, Irish, Polish, Greek, etc., immigrants from Europe, with more skills and value to offer society. As for those who come here for cheap labor...well, New York really needs some cheap labor.

In short, on some issue, what is good for New York City (and the Mayor or NYC) may not be good for the USA, and Presidential candidates, as a whole.

The USA can't and shouldn't be governed the same way as New York, or Massachusetts, or (shudder) Arkansas, or Tennessee, or wherever your favorite candidate originally came from. Dwelling on things they did there can be overdone.

I agree that if Rudy persists in all those things it will be a problem. I just think there are ways to deal with it other than electing the other guys, none of who show the good things I see in Rudy.

Thompson is pretty good but frankly seems tired. He would be a good VP for Rudy.

McCain...what can I say about McCain but to thank him for his service? I'm sure he will do what he thinks is right, and will often have good ideas, but will often be guided by the wrong people.

Huck: unacceptable.

Romney: on paper a viable candidate, but deep down...I don't think so. Too slick, lacks the iron.

Hunter: A computer test sad Hunter's ideas were closest to mine, which suggests I should think about him. The fact is...

Hunter: who? If he had mad headway as did Huck, he would be easier to consider. Well, he hasn't.

Tancredo: Better him than Paul.

Keyes: Better him than Paul.

Paul: Better him than Pat Buchanan, I suppose. Maybe.

Pat Buchanan (not a candidate): better him than Hillary? Probably still be there when the polls closed, deciding which was less vile. (Actually it seems possible that Hillary would be harder-charging on the war than Paul. Which is why he will never, never, never be elected.)

The Dems, BTW, will have a much easier time if they reject Hillary. Edwards or Barack would suck hard, be lousy Presidents, but wrongly or not, they don't trip my SATAN ALERT!!!!!!!!! meter. I will vote against them, but would be less motivated to crawl across broken glass to do so.

[el gordo]

Thanks, Nichevo. Duncan Hunter was my favorite unknown candidate. Too bad.

Romney certainly looks like a solid guy but I´m still not convinced that he has any ideology (in the good sense). Has he ever been sticking his neck out for something? Maybe. I don´t know.

Whatever Giulani´s faults are, he has taken risks to apply conservative principles to government - in an ultra-liberal city - and he took a lot of flak for it. By contrast, McCain and Huckabee have actually been to the left of their constituencies. They could have been more conservative without any risk to themselves. As for Romney, the picture is just not clear to me.

I do not think the gun issue, for example, is going to move either way. Even the Dems have given up on it. What worries me is the unaccountability of federal government, the intelligence community, the state department. And dealing with that is a Giuliani specialty. He´s good on spending, social issues, security and business. On energy and environment, I do not see much difference between him and Romney except that Giuliani has been clearer and gutsier in endorsing nuclear power which is a plus. (my other worry is left-wing indoctrination through education and the media, but there´s not much a president can do)

Meanwhile, the debates deal with non-issues including Romney´s faith.

[el gordo]

Oh, and tort reform. That is a big deal for me and Rudy is for it.