Rudy Giuliani
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has taken the first step in a 2008 presidential bid, filing papers to create an exploratory committee, Republican sources tell CNN.
Image by Crzrussian, cropped by Angr - Cropped from w:Image:Bedrick with Giuliani.jpg, Public Domain, Source 9m.
With the possibility of a Clinton presidential campaign, the obvious choices would have the Republicans select a candidate that will run more to the center on issues and not a extreme right wing representative. McCain or Giulliani will be the choice in my opinion. Unless McCain has learned from his past attempts at the nomination, he will blow up at some point in his campaign and shoot himself squarely in the foot. He just has such trouble controlling his temper and the media loves to catch him sneering or pouting. Giulliani is well known to the public and generally liked by most. He could carry NY, which is pretty huge electorally. Giulliani has already had some of his ghost pulled out of the closet in his campaigns as mayor (the affair he had) and has actually come through them pretty good. Unless there are more ghost in that closet (and I am sure there was a very good attempt at finding some), I would think that Giulliani would be the perfect candidate and would actually get quite a few Democrats votes if they put up Hillary.
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I believe that the democrats complained that his policies were racists. However, that would not shock me as his policies on cleaning up NY afffected minorities more than caucasians. Caucasians, on the whole, appreciated this more and gave him their vote more than other groups. Minorities that were affected by his policies thought he was picking on them. This is if you choose to break the vote down in this manner. I am sure there are many minorities that appreciate the improvement in NY during the Guilliani mayorship. But to get right down to it, his policies cleaned up the streets agressively, stopped lap dancing and closed down a lot of stip clubs (indirectly, but none the less cleverly).
Giulliani did not choose to make each of his elections a race issue, that was his competitor that did that. They did that because they didn't have much else to attack him on. This was more evident on his last 2 elections to mayor, as the only other thing that they could attack him on was his affair. The problem for the Democrats is that minorities are not a very reliable voting block and that issue was not enough to elect their candidate. Since the US people, in general, have given Bill Clinton a pass on his few affairs, one can easily see how this will probably not creep up again in a Giulliani vs Hillary race. Unless someone can provide his KKK membership, I cannot see this being the main issue of the campaign. If they can truly prove it, he will not make it past the primaries.
Giulliani has only been a mayor and this might be a problem. However, his experience from running the largest US city (3 times elected) and playing a key role in 9/11 cleanup, should more than make up for not being a congressman or governor. I mean just remember the differences between Ray Nagin (New Orleans Mayor) and Giulliani after their respective disasters. Can you see any differences in how they handled the problem? Did you have any confidence in either that they knew what they were doing?
International Level: International Guru / Political Participation: 863 86.3%
Wow, if John McCain and Rudy Giuliani run for president, thats a serious power play by the Republicans, embracing the middle a lot more than last election. Both of those candidates have a shot at getting my vote. I like the possible democrats running for president as well. If this shapes up the way it looks on the outset, I am going to have a tough choice to vote. Giuliani is a good run against anyone, I just wonder if the Republican base will see it that way and pull the trigger on his nomination in the end. I know that he is almost too middle of the road for most right wing conservatives.
Is he going to reach the minorities? Since as mentioned before, he has been accused of racist in the past, would that be a right choice for the Republican party?
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As far as I am concerned, Giuliani would be a very poor choice for Republicans. Yes, he is to the right of Hilary Clinton or John Kerry, but he is far to the left of the vast majority of the people who generally vote Republican. He did a wonderful job in New York City, but part of that was because compared to most of New York City's government, he really was conservative.
The best thing that the Republicans can do is really, truly go conservative. Forget the pseudo-conservatives such as McCain and Giuliani.
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The problem with going truly conservative is that the Republicans don't have a well liked, high profile extreme conservative that looks good on TV. The conservative Republicans took a vote amongst themselves and it turns out that George Allen is their pick. One problem: He just lost his senatorial seat! Even his home state doesn't like him anymore. The next 2 in the order of voting were McCain and then Guiliani.
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George Allen, born March 8, 1952 in California, current junior Senator and former Governor of Virginia. As of May 2nd, 2005, a survey of 75 Washington insiders conducted by National Journal's The Hotline reveals that he is considered by some to be a current front-runner for the GOP party nomination. On February 11, 2006, Senator Allen was the top choice of conservatives at the annual CPAC convention in Washington D.C. receiving 22% of the votes. Senator McCain received 20%, followed by Giuliani at 12%, and Condi Rice at 10%. Newt Gingrich received 5% of the votes. However, controversy garned by Allen's alleged racism, denial of his heritage, and his Senate loss to Jim Webb - which handed control of the Senate to the Democrats - have likely shattered his presidential aspirations. |
International Level: International Guru / Political Participation: 863 86.3%