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2006-06-06 Home Front: Politix
If He Runs, Don't Bet Against Rudy
By Richard Baehr
The rubber chicken circuit can be brutal. So one of the best indicators of how likely it is that a potential candidate will in fact run for national office is how much effort he expends to campaign for his party's candidates in the Congressional election two years before the presidential race.

Tomorrow night, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will be in Chicago. He will be here for a fundraiser for Dave McSweeney, the Republican candidate for the 8th Congressional District in Illinois. While there are a few dozen endangered GOP incumbents around the country, McSweeney's race may represent one of the best pickup opportunities for the GOP in 2006, as he tries to unseat first-term Democratic Congresswoman Melissa Bean in a district that President Bush captured with 56% of the vote in 2004.

Giuliani is also providing support for other GOP Congressional and Senate candidates, as well as to Ralph Reed, the GOP candidate for Lieutenant Governor in Georgia. Giuliani has been a busy man since he left office in New York at the end of 2001. He has consulted with municipalities on how they can reduce their crime rates, created an investment banking firm, associated with a Texas law firm, and given lots of speeches. At age 62, he appears to be happily married, financially successful and cured of the prostate cancer that forced him out of the 2000 US Senate race in New York against Hillary Clinton.

Many of Giuliani's talks are on the topic of leadership. Democrats have run on the issue of competence several times in recent decades, and not very competently. Michael Dukakis' "Massachusetts miracle" did not resonate nationally, in part due to the frozen fish personality of the former Massachusetts governor. John Kerry also campaigned on competence, but could not articulate how his approach would be different from the President's on Iraq, the issue where his critique of Bush's competence rang loudest.

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Giuliani's message is about leadership, not just competence. Leadership is all about communication, and one of the biggest issues Republicans have with the current administration is its inability to successfully communicate a message on the stakes in Iraq, the success of the economy, or new policies on immigration and energy independence.

On the circuit and in early polling for the 2008 race, Giuliani has shown significant crossover appeal. A potential rival for the GOP nomination in 2008, Arizona Senator John McCain, has demonstrated much the same appeal to independents and Democrats. But Giuliani has some advantages as compared to McCain. Giuliani is not a Washington insider. He has not voted on hundreds of bills over the years, thereby antagonizing many interest groups on many issues. He has also been Mayor of Americas' largest city, so he has had to manage a major enterprise, not just a congressional office of 15 people. Given the track record in recent decades of governors running for the presidency (Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush) and Senators (all of whom were unsuccessful since JFK) Giuliani's experience puts him in the more successful of the two camps. Rudy was, after all, a highly accomplished mayor of a city considered ungovernable for several decades before he took office.

During his 8 years as Mayor of New York, the city's murder rate dropped from about 2,300 murders per year, to just over 600. Most of the murder victims in New York are black and Hispanic. The reduced murder rate meant that over the 8 years, more than 10,000 people, who might have died with a continuation of the killing spree in place when he took office, now live their lives. Critics of Giuliani like to point out that crime rates dropped elsewhere during this period, as the crack epidemic waned. But nowhere did they drop as dramatically as in New York City.

In New York City there was a program to reduce crime. It did not just happen due to sociological factors. The broken windows approach, rounding up perpetrators of lesser crimes who were easier to find, often captured those also involved in more serious crimes. But equally important was the use of computerized statistical analyses to identify where crime was occurring on a daily and weekly basis, and using that information to direct the resources of the police department to address the highest priority locales. Not surprisingly, the presence of police in high crime areas had an inhibiting effect on criminal activity in those areas. The best evidence that Giuliani's approach deserves the credit is the many members of his administration hired by other cities to implement the same policies.

As a consultant to Mexico City, Giuliani was asked to address the city's wave of executive kidnappings. Giuliani told an audience at a talk I attended, that he quickly discovered that in Mexico City ransom was routinely paid to get the executives released. In the U.S., ransom is rarely paid in this kind of case. Not surprisingly, corporate kidnappings are not a big problem in the US, since they have little likelihood of a big financial payoff for the kidnappers, and because kidnapping is regarded as a very serious crime that brings in the FBI. In Mexico City, corporate kidnapping has a big financial payoff. Hence, Rudy's advice: stop paying ransom.

Giuliani says he will decide whether he will run for President after the 2006 Congressional elections. Polls that show him decisively beating Hillary Clinton in 2008 have gotten many Republicans excited about his possible participation in the race. But other Republicans, particularly some social conservatives, are wary. The Republican Party today has three principal "issue wings." National security conservatives see the war on terrorism as the singular issue for our time. Big business conservatives want lower tax rates, and spending control (at least for everybody else's program). This group includes most of the $1,000 and $2,000 contributors to national campaigns. Social issue conservatives want abortion rights rolled back, and do not want gay marriage legalized.

Of course, some of the people who are in one camp because of a primary attachment to the issues of that camp, are also supportive of the traditional GOP positions of another of the three groups. Giulani's leadership after the events of 9/11, his success in dealing with New York City's equivalent of "national security" issues through crime reduction, and his tough talk on combating Islamic radicalism, all give him a lot of appeal to the national security camp, much like McCain. As Mayor of New York, Giuliani took on the large public employee unions that had contributed to bankrupting the city and also cut some taxes. He should not have any trouble attracting support with the low-tax and spending-control constituency, who are a bit nervous about McCain on these issues. Of course, Giuliani was also tough on corporate crime, helping put away Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken as a US Attorney. With so much attention now focused by the media on corporate crime, Rudy has good credentials here too.

Where Rudy will face his biggest challenge is with the social conservative camp, or at least among some of its leaders, due to his past support for abortion rights and gay rights.

Some of the leading conservative thinkers in the country were in Chicago at an event I participated in last fall. Before the event started, the panelists met in an office and conversation quickly got around to what Rudy can do to make peace with social conservatives in the party. It was obvious that this group trusted Giuliani more than they did McCain, even though some had backed McCain in 2000.

They all thought that while McCain was pro-life and therefore acceptable to the religious conservatives on this issue, his straying on other issues and his support of campaign finance reform had antagonized many in the business community as well as religious conservatives. It was clear that Rudy was regarded as the best bet to maintain GOP control of the White House in 2008. One suggestion was that Giuliani announce a conversion, and a change in his position on some of these issues, similar to what formerly anti-abortion Democrats like Dick Durbin, and Dick Gephardt did to make themselves more palatable to the pro-choice forces who dominate the Democratic Party.

I thought this was a very bad idea. One of Rudy's strongest points is his authenticity, and this would smack of opportunism and insincerity.

Another suggestion was that Rudy should meet with the leaders of the Christian evangelical movement and reassure them that he would not be an advocate for things they were fighting, regardless of his personal views. Some of this has happened already. Last September, Giuliani was asked to speak at the annual dinner for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews in Washington DC. The IFCJ is a pro-Israel group that includes both Jews and evangelical Christians. Giuliani was introduced by Tom DeLay, and Gary Bauer and Ralph Reed were among the IFCJ's supporters who applauded Giuliani's selection as an award recipient (Senator Joe Lieberman was the other award recipient that night).

DeLay introduced Giuliani as the man on my right (in terms of seating). When Giuliani got up to speak, he told the audience that he might have to remind some voters in the years ahead of Congressman DeLay's description, that he was to the right of Tom DeLay.

My own view is that there is a third strategy for Giuliani to become an acceptable candidate to religious conservatives. That would be to state publicly that he believed that President Bush had made two very good appointments to the Supreme Court in John Robert and Sam Alito. He could also say that if elected, he would seek to find similar justices for the High Court when any vacancies occurred: men or women of great professional competence and integrity, committed to a serious examination of the language and meaning of the Constitution, and not to making new law on the Court.

The reality is that "progressive" social legislation generally does not pass the Congress to become law. Law changes to implement the "progressive" social agenda have been more often judicially mandated. If Giuliani promises to appoint Supreme Court and lower court justices who will be perceived as strict constructionists (even if he does not use those exact words), then he will do no worse in this area than a candidate who has professed a pro-life policy for his or her entire political career.

At the moment, the GOP race is shaping up as McCain and Giuliani on the center right, and Senator George Allen and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney among more traditional conservatives (Senator Bill Frist is also in the more traditional camp though he has faded a bit as a potential candidate after a disappointing run as Majority Leader). Both McCain and Giuliani, with broad national name recognition, so far run far better in head-to-head races with prospective Democratic nominees than either Allen or Romney, who are not as widely known.

There are of course wild cards out there. If Vice President Cheney resigned after the 2006 Congressional elections, whoever President Bush appointed to be Vice President would immediately become a serious player for the 2008 race and likely the favorite. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice comes to mind.

2008 is the first open seat Presidential race since 1920. No sitting President or Vice President will be running. With no clear favorites at the head of the line on the GOP side, it is a wide open race. Among Democrats, the recent emergence of new movie star and global warming pontificator Al Gore has slowed-down the Hillary express for the Democratic nomination, though Gore insists he is not now a candidate. In his new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Gore argues that the global warming problem must be solved in the next 10 years or the world is doomed. That would mean Gore would have to solve the problem before the end of his second term in office. That might be asking too much even of Al Gore.

If the county wants a problem solver, Rudy Giuliani might be the man. Giuliani has worked closely with the leaders of the Manhattan Institute, publishers of the City Journal, and has shown himself open to new ideas and research that might lead to more innovative approaches to urban problems.

Rudy is not a candidate so uncomfortable in his own skin that he would need a consultant to select the color tones for his suits. Americans used to love to hate New York, but Giuliani became America's Mayor as much as New York's in the months after 9/11, as he demonstrated his and the city's resilience, and toughness. In the same way that it is easy to hate the Yankees but hard to hate Joe Torre, their very classy manager, Giuliani has overcome the parochialism and sense of world-centeredness that affects so many people from the Big Apple. He has become a genuinely popular national figure.

If Rudy chooses to go for the big enchilada, I would not bet against him.

Richard Baehr is the chief political correspondent of The American Thinker.
Posted by ryuge 2006-06-06 06:17|| || Front Page|| [11136 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 Rudy is a TRUE leader, he showed that on 9/11.... better than anyone else, I would say, including monkey boy, W.
Posted by bk 2006-06-06 09:47||   2006-06-06 09:47|| Front Page Top

#2 Go Rudy. I'm waiting for the debates. Someone has to point the finger at Islam and say ENEMY.
That's who I'll follow, hopefully that'll be Rudy.
Posted by wxjames 2006-06-06 11:05||   2006-06-06 11:05|| Front Page Top

#3 It won't be easy for him to get some of his personal history and issues on social stands past the GOP primary electorate. If he can pull that off, he'd have comparatively smooth sailing in the general election
Posted by Throlurt Flaiger8080 2006-06-06 12:01||   2006-06-06 12:01|| Front Page Top

#4 I would vote for him. THE GOP NEEDS TO LEARN THAT RIGHT NOW social stands are LESS IMPORTANT THAN THE WAR ON TERROR!
Posted by 3dc 2006-06-06 12:30||   2006-06-06 12:30|| Front Page Top

#5 What do Republicans want more: to capture the "social issues" right or to capture a majority of American votes for the presidency of 2008?

If it's the latter-if they want to pick another winner-then Rudy would be a fabulous choice. Probably the best choice. Not thrilled about his gun control stance, but in most other areas, I think he is a solid, believable centrist candidate with great security credentials. That would keep my presidential vote Republican.
Posted by Jules 2006-06-06 12:31||   2006-06-06 12:31|| Front Page Top

#6 I have been a good Republican my whole life, but I WILL NOT vote for Rudy. His stance on gun control is totally unacceptable and precludes my support. In a Clinton vs. Giuliani election I will scream “A pox upon both your houses!” and vote Libertarian.
Posted by Secret Master 2006-06-06 13:09||   2006-06-06 13:09|| Front Page Top

#7 Well Rudy pretty much can't stop the NRA, so I vote for him over Hillary.
Posted by djohn66 2006-06-06 13:16||   2006-06-06 13:16|| Front Page Top

#8 SM, I understand your frustration but I think john66 makes the point. NRA too strong (I'm a lifetime member btw). I'm sure he will have to come way right on guns and he knows it. Actually a lot of moderate dems don't like either of their gun stances. It's only the loonies on the far left who keep it an issue. Guns is usually a non-issue among non-gun owners.
Posted by Broadhead6 2006-06-06 14:01||   2006-06-06 14:01|| Front Page Top

#9 Secret Master, the President cannot change the Constitution so his stance on gun ownership is not as big a deal as you think.

You should ensure the Congress agrees with your stance on gun ownership and your state elected officials because they are the only ones who can truly change things.
Posted by rjschwarz 2006-06-06 14:13||   2006-06-06 14:13|| Front Page Top

#10 On Giuliani and religious conservatives:

Sorry I can't remember the date and author, but someone quoted some evangelical ladies after a presentation by Giuliani to this effect: None of the social issues will matter if America is not safe.
Posted by mom ">mom  2006-06-06 15:03|| http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]">[http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com]  2006-06-06 15:03|| Front Page Top

#11 Seeing what I'll probably have to pick from, I'd vote for him. I don't agree with with on every issue but just seeing how he pulled New York out of that cesspool it had become would've been good enough for me. And the man can lead.
Posted by tu3031 2006-06-06 16:01||   2006-06-06 16:01|| Front Page Top

#12 While I understand the point that all of you are making, for me gun control is a Martin Luther issue. As in, “Here I stand; I can do no other.” The president sets the tone on social issues in nation. While I understand the importance of a strong leader in uncertain times, Giuliani and I aren’t playing on the same team. Hell, we aren’t even playing the same sport.

For me, being a Republican is kind of like being a libertarian with the happy advantage that I’m not insane. For example, you can’t convince me that an unborn child is just “tissue” or that we don’t need a military. Other than that, government is a parasite with very little appreciable value. I’m a Nevada “mind your own business or else” Republican. Wanna smoke a joint and shoot up copies of Koran with a machine gun while reading porn? So long as you do it on your own property, not my business. Giuliani is a New York “do what you’re told or else” Republican. He’ll thrown your ass in jail for AT LEAST three out of four of those things because, in his opinion, everything you do is society’s business.

Honestly, the two types of Republican (libertarian vs. statist) don’t have that much in common outside of our mutual support for an aggressive, military-backed foreign policy and a belief in the free enterprise system. But without a functioning version of the constitution our Founding Father’s created, what’s the point? Rudy doesn’t give a damn about the Bill of Rights and his judicial appointments won’t either!
Posted by Secret Master 2006-06-06 16:04||   2006-06-06 16:04|| Front Page Top

#13 It would be good if social conservatives could pick a couple of their most important issues and have him pledge not to cross certain red lines - a pledge to appoint strict constructionists to the federal bench would be an obvious one. More conservative Republicans might vote for him if they got a sense that there wouldn't be any regression on those things that they consider crucial - especially when they would be expecting regress should the Democrat win. Under those circumstances, most Republicans would feel that a "pox on both houses" vote from someone who usually votes Republican would be, in essence, a vote for the Dems. Maybe a good VP nomination would help win social conservatives over. I would find it personally satisfying if he chose John Bolton for VP - I would certainly enjoy the reactions - but since he has good WoT creds, that would probably be a silly choice.
Posted by ryuge 2006-06-06 16:42||   2006-06-06 16:42|| Front Page Top

#14 Rudy is unelectable. The prostate cancer issue will kill him politically. The Doinks need only whisper 'cancer'.
Posted by Steve White">Steve White  2006-06-06 16:49||   2006-06-06 16:49|| Front Page Top

#15 I think his hanky-panky, not cancer, would do him in.
Posted by ed 2006-06-06 17:11||   2006-06-06 17:11|| Front Page Top

#16 By 2012 Sept 11 will be too far in the past and those issues will kill him (for now I think he'll get a pass). If he wants to run 2008 is his only chance.
Posted by rjschwarz 2006-06-06 17:29||   2006-06-06 17:29|| Front Page Top

#17 ryuge:
OK - good point. I'd vote for anyone who nominates John Bolton as their VP!


Posted by Secret Master 2006-06-06 17:45||   2006-06-06 17:45|| Front Page Top

#18 Straw poll in Michigan is putting Tom Tancredo in first. Love him on immigration, but where does he fit overall on the political spectrum? Super right on every issue? Only right on immigration? Any Colorado folks care to chime in?
Posted by Glaising Hupiting7015 2006-06-06 17:46||   2006-06-06 17:46|| Front Page Top

#19 Rudy's happy, Rudy's kids are doing OK - 3rd time's the charm at this point in time.

Besides, at least he had the guts to divorce....unlike a certain couple I could mention......
Posted by anonymous2u 2006-06-06 17:49||   2006-06-06 17:49|| Front Page Top

#20 I'm Colorado ... his big issue is immigration, on most other things he's right of center, not super right, but right.

On Rudy, I'm with bk - that was leadership on 9/11. I kept looking to Bush to come on the air and assure the nation, esp Early on.

Instead there was Giuliani leading NY and the rest of us as well, to be honest.
Posted by bombay">bombay  2006-06-06 18:37||   2006-06-06 18:37|| Front Page Top

#21 For me, among established politicians, only Rudy generates confidence that the three fronts in the WoT would be prosecuted and taken to the next level:

1) We must call Islam the problem - out loud and very publicly. Demand they reform it, isolate the jihadists, or go down with them. We have to take this step, else we lose - fighting ghosts and phantoms.

2) We must attack the funding and safe harbor centers of Islam. The funding from "charity" networks, the Mullahs, the Saudis, and the Pakistan / Malaysia / Indonesia harbors. All must be made front-burner villians from the bully pulpit. All must be stopped, by whatever means necessary, or this goes on forever.

3) We must prosecute the internal war against the subversive leakers, the outlaw activists who wear the robes of the law, the social-engineering enemies who want open borders and indoctrinate our children into moonbat cults. We need someone who knows the law, believes in the law, and will prosecute according to the law. Either we believe in what we claim to be, and act accordingly, or we bleed to death from "a thousand cuts".

And people like Rice, Bolton, Tancredo would make excellent VP's.

Every election is crucial. We can't afford to take 4 years off in the WoT. The rest of it, including some individual issues that ring the bell personally, have to take a back seat to the one that is for our very existence.
Posted by flyover 2006-06-06 19:35||   2006-06-06 19:35|| Front Page Top

#22 I'd vote for Rudy in a NY second.
Posted by JDB 2006-06-06 20:00||   2006-06-06 20:00|| Front Page Top

#23 Of the potential Republican candidates in 2008 put forward thus far, the only two I would seriously consider voting for at the moment are Condi and Rudy.

Part of me wants to see Condi win the Republican nomination just so I can watch all the LLL's heads explode. A woman who is also a minority running as a Republican, and a formiddable opponent to boot, will send them all into a tizzy of the likes we've never seen before.

The other part of me wants Rudy to get the nod just so I can cast my vote his way with more conviction than any Presidential vote in my 13 years as a voter.

And yes, I'm from the Big Apple.
Posted by eltoroverde 2006-06-06 22:29||   2006-06-06 22:29|| Front Page Top

#24 #15 I think his hanky-panky, not cancer, would do him in.

Ed does have a point on this one. I live in a Seattle-area congressional district represented by a lefty Democrat who defeated a Republican incumbent several years back. The Pubbie was a prominent Seattle lawyer and big "family values" guy who made the reeeeally unfortunate mistake of bringing his twentysomething cutesypoo extracurricular activity to a number of public functions in the district.

Now, Democrat/lefty women don't give much of a rat's ass about this if the guy makes the right noises on policy - remember the radical feminist who said she'd be perfectly happy to polish Bill Clinton's knob out of gratitude because he "kept abortion legal"? Republican women ain't like that at all...as my district's Repub now-former congressman found out to his great chagrin, they actually take stuff like that both very seriously and very personally. A friend of mine told me that once this guy's hanky-panky became public knowledge, the district's Republican women manned the jungle telegraph to get the word out - this guy says his wife personally cost the congressman at least a dozen votes.

That being said, I think that Rudy would still have a very good chance of winning both the nomination and the presidency, messy personal life aside. Republican women don't like philanderers, but I think they'll grit their teeth and support someone with a proven track record of getting horrendously difficult shit done and done right. Newt Gingrich? Fuhgeddaboudit...to the Republican woman, his achievements as the conservative movement's ideas guy are counterbalanced by his disgraceful treatment of both his first and second wives. Rudy's behavior was similar - he went out of his way to publicly humiliate his wife in his last years as NY mayor. But the Republican woman will compare that with the indisputable fact that he singlehandedly saved a city that everyone assumed was doomed to be an American Calcutta. And they'll decide that the man capable of doing that would be capable of keeping them and their families safe in the years ahead.
Posted by Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2006-06-06 23:26||   2006-06-06 23:26|| Front Page Top

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