It's gonna be Giuliani. How we gonna stop him?

[Hamlette]

Is the GOP setting us up to take the fall for losing Iraq? Does Giuliani then step in and look like a white knight here to save America?

After all, NYC voted for him. Is he that bad? If so, give me the dirt. I hate the thought of another GOP cowboy president.

[Suich]

1. Have no fear!

Giuliani's implosion is going to be spectacular!

:hi:

[movonne]

2. Well I think that I read (somewhere) that NY don't feel that way anymore..

[Katherine Brengle]

3. al Qaqaa, married his cousin, cheated on his wife,

I think there are some pictures of him in a dress somewhere that conservatives probably won't like.

Plus I think he's prochoice.

Oh, and New Yorkers may have elected him, but I don't think they will make the same mistake again.

[WI_DEM]

4. Why do you think it's going to be Rudy?

The campaign hasn't started. All anybody really knows about him is 9/11 which happened in the last months he was mayor. He had a very controversial record prior to that and if he had run against Hillary in 2000 for the senate he probably would have lost. He also has three marriages and was having an open affair as Mayor of NY. How will that play with the values crowd? No, it's too early to say who the nominee in either party will be.

[SharonAnn]

9. Many of us know lots more about him before and after 9/11. He's toast.

[walldude]

5. Oh please.. this clown couldn't win if they fixed the election for him

He's pro-choice, totally inexperienced and was bringing his mistress to the Capitol in NY. No Republican will vote for him.

[Bucky]

6. McCain or Brownback

Once a true believer emerges, the grassroots Republicans will flock to him over Giuliani. Pro-abortion Catholics may impress Pat Robertson, but the mobs they've been churning up for years won't go away that quietly. Brownback really is almost Reaganesque in his self confidence. He may not need the big money people.

[Auggie]

13. Agreed.

[emulatorloo]

25. Brownback's Deranged Fundy Wackism is just beneath the surface. Will they really go for him? He is

So FAR OUT it is as if he is from another planet.


In case you haven't read,

God's Senator
Who would Jesus vote for? Meet Sam Brownback

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9178374/gods_senator

There is a lot in that article, just a snippet re The Fellowship "cell"

<snip>


Brownback was placed in a weekly prayer cell by "the shadow Billy Graham" -- Doug Coe, Vereide's successor as head of the Fellowship. The group was all male and all Republican. It was a "safe relationship," Brownback says. Conversation tended toward the personal. Brownback and the other men revealed the most intimate details of their desires, failings, ambitions. They talked about lust, anger and infidelities, the more shameful the better -- since the goal was to break one's own will. The abolition of self; to become nothing but a vessel so that one could be used by God.

They were striving, ultimately, for what Coe calls "Jesus plus nothing" -- a government led by Christ's will alone. In the future envisioned by Coe, everything -- sex and taxes, war and the price of oil -- will be decided upon not according to democracy or the church or even Scripture. The Bible itself is for the masses; in the Fellowship, Christ reveals a higher set of commands to the anointed few. It's a good old boy's club blessed by God. Brownback even lived with other cell members in a million-dollar, red-brick former convent at 133 C Street that was subsidized and operated by the Fellowship. Monthly rent was $600 per man -- enough of a deal by Hill standards that some said it bordered on an ethical violation, but no charges were ever brought.

Brownback still meets with the prayer cell every Tuesday evening. He and his "brothers," he says, are "bonded together, faith and souls." The rules forbid Brownback from revealing the names of his fellow members, but those in the cell likely include such conservative stalwarts as Rep. Zach Wamp of Tennessee, former Rep. Steve Largent of Oklahoma and Sen. Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma doctor who has advocated the death penalty for abortion providers. Fellowship documents suggest that some 30 senators and 200 congressmen occasionally attend the group's activities, but no more than a dozen are involved at Brownback's level.<snip>

[Bucky]

30. If not Sammy B. then someone fresh will break from the pack.

Giuliani and Romney won't last with this crowd, but will split the country club & so-called moderate vote. It'll come down to McCain and one guy out of the field. Either Gilmore or Huckabee. Someone who can make the wingers feel warm while sticking the working class out in the cold.

[C_U_L8R]

7. As a NYer, I always saw him as an empty suit

with creepy views about what other
people's 'quality of life' was supposed to be.
This whole America's mayor BS is vapor.
Rudy on 911 ??? He was hiding in the basement.
And in the aftermath... he was pathetic.

[HockeyMom]

23. He won't even win NY

Latest poll I just saw not only had Hillary soundly beating him here, but even OBAMA beating him in New York State.

Anybody who endorses BUSH and his polices, plain and simple, is NOT going to win in New York.

[LonelyLRLiberal]

8. Don't you find him annoying?

I think he is both annoying and boring. Sure, everyone was all in a total state of shock on and after 9/11, and he did a good job making people think he was in control and everything would be okay, but I don't think his popularity will hold up in a long campaign involving multiple international and domestic issues.

(Anyhow, I hope I'm right.)

[Missy M]

11. I sure do find him annoying....

he was annoying before 9/11 and is still annoying. It was the media who crowned him America's Mayor. He is a legend in his own mind.

[cali]

10. I doubt it will be Rudy, and at the risk of sounding

over confident, I don't see any Republican posing a serious threat. Either the repukes nominate someone like Rudy or McPain, or they nominate someone like Brownback or Hunter. If the former, socons desert the party in droves, if the latter, they don't get enough indies.

[Richard Steele]

12. I really don't think it's gonna be Guliani. We don't have to stop him.

The Repub primary process is gonna do that.

[napi21]

14. You all may call me an AH for saying this, but.....

I'm personally hoping for a Pub candidate that I could at least SORT OF live with as Prez.

I want a Dem more than anything else, but we have to face facts here. The Country has been almost equally divided for a very long time, and no matter who the candidates are, there's sure no guarantee which one will win!

IF a Pub wins in08, I sure don't want another neocon extremeist!

Out of the crowd of Pubs who who are now apparently in contention, i think Giulainjust might be the best of the bad.

[Gabi Hayes]

20. he may not be a classic neocon, but he's a RABID authoritarian:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=151710

[Missy M]

22. Rudy can be very extreme in his way of thinking....

He is an egotist who wants it his way and as the country found out with Bush, it doesn't work that way in Washington.

[napi21]

36. OK, so you know Rudy better than I do. Based upon what I said...

you never know WHO is going to win a Presidential election...who do YOU think would be tollerable as the Pub candidate?

Romney seems to be an idiot willing to say anything depending on what race he's in. Brownback is another Fundie. McCain is a warmonger who has sold his soul to Shrub. Gingrich (I'm from Ga.) isworse than Shrub in supporting the CORPORATION! I don't think I can trust Huckabeeas far as I could throw him, plus he's also a fundie. And Thompson is about as personable as a doormat, and as intelligent as the average garden slug. If I left anyone out, I have to assume heis too insignificant to matter.

So which one do YOU think would be better than Rudy?

[etherealtruth]

15. Can a Republican candidate win w/out ...

... the religious right wing?

If Guiliani runs I think they'll all stay home ... I can't imagine them be willing to vote for him under any circumstances.

[Hamlette]

37. what I don't get is the religious right HATES McCain but says nothing about Rudy.

maybe they will go along with him if the option is a dem?

But what I don't get is why hasn't the religious right trashed Rudy like they have McCain? Rudy's been married three times, is from New York City (gasp), doesn't hate gays, is pro abortion, had afairs, appears to have NO "family values". McCain seems like a not terribly rabid social conservative and he's the one they go after.

Will they like Rudy because they think they can use him to start WWIII?

I'm at a loss. I know Rudy's poll might have something to do with him not being known but why hasn't Dobson disqualified him yet?

[etherealtruth]

43. I really think that the "religiously insane" (quoting a dearly departed du'er

... will stay home if confronted with 2 pro-choice non-gay hating candidates. Why hasn't he been disqualified yet? I don't know but I have faith that he will be ... these people are motivated by visceral hatred of people that even tolerate groups or activities that they disapprove of.

I hope I'm correct ... but who knows.

[immoderate]

16. He put the emergency response unit in the World Trade Center...

...so it would be in walking distance from his office. A supremely stupid move, since it was also the number one target for terrorists. He also lied to first responders about the air quality at the WTC, and now they're all coming down with mesothelioma. And then there was the police riot he instigated, as well as the police executions that toook place on his watch.

Giuliani won't do any better than any other Republican goons. It's really ours to lose.

--IMM

[stevedeshazer]

17. I don't think it's gonna be Giuliani

But, if it is, much of the radical religious right will sit on their hands in November 2008. They'll stay home if they have to for for a pro-choice guy.

That hurts him in states like those in the intermountain west, which have enlarged importance despite smaller populations due to the electoral college. It could swing Nevada, Montana, New Mexico and Arizona if the fundies don't turn out in big numbers. I just don't see them being excited about Rudy.

How's Rudy on immigration? All those beer-bellied vigilantes guarding the Mexican border with their keyboards on freerepublic will run to their porta-potties if Rudy is the Republic Party nominee.

I'm rooting for my personal Republican favorite, Duncan Hunter, because I at least can hope that when all us progressives and liberals are interned, we'll at least get two types of fruit.

[WI_DEM]

18. Good point. The Christian Right would be less than enthused.

[Gabi Hayes]

27. Pat Robertson already said he's fine with Giuliani.

and this is 2007!

wait til McCain cracks up. Falwell will come next. Then St. Rudy will kiss the ring at Bob Jones U, and all will be well in Right Ring World

just watch: the media will fix everything for him

[stevedeshazer]

31. I could see it going that way, too, but it's a tall order

Rabid radical right religious nuts are hard to convince.

Plus, if Rudy has an anti-choice conversion, he's a flip-flopper.

[Warren DeMontague]

42. Yeah, but Pat Robertson is a nut who barely anyone listens to these days.

It's gasbags like Don Wildmon & James Dobson who really drive the religious right agenda. And they'd be apoplectic if Rudy got anywhere near the nomination.

[Gabi Hayes]

19. the reason you're right, I think, is one that I haven't seen mentioned here yet?

the media are falling all over America's Mayor

he's riding the "Straight Talk Express" of 2007-8

they love him, and McCain is old news, as well as starting to implode

time will tell, but if the last 6 years have any relevance, the M$M will jump on the Giuliani bandwagon and hang on til the bitter end, which, I hope, will happen due to his extreme mental instability/venality being exposed. Problem is, exposed by whom? the same media who 'exposed' Bush's myriad vulnerabilities?

I sure hope I'm wrong

[nevergiveup]

21. All the Republicans I know

love him and they could care less who he was sleeping with when mayor. Personal morality issues are only important to them when it is a Democrat.

[WI_DEM]

24. Are they fundamentalist Christian righters you know?

I can see many suburban "Rockefeller" type republicans loving him, but not the fundies.

[walldude]

26. Do they know he's pro-choice and pro-gun control?

Most Republicans will vote against their own interests if it means voting against a Dem but these are 2 really big issues.

[nevergiveup]

38. He is already modifying

his position on abortion and talking about appointing pro-life judges. We are going to witness some of the biggest political flip-flops in American history. By this time next year he will be acceptable to a great majority of conservatives.

[bambo53]

28. I'm hoping Tom Foley will run

The entertainment value alone would be worth it.

[progressivebydesign]

29. I HOPE it's Giuliani. A wife-hating, philandering, thug...

he'd be easy to beat. His record as mayor, before they declared him St. Rudy, was thuggish and he was not a popular guy. Add to that the fact that he seems old and frail.. and that he treated his wife and children like GARBAGE by trying to evict them and then moving in his lover in the same house.

He's soo easy to beat.

Oh, and he's a big time flip flopper.

If that's the best they can do, I feel sorry for them.

[Little Wing]

32. Find a hot young blonde ready to take one for the team

Oh wait, they'll consider that spreading his seed and doing God's will.

Nevermind!

[Jackpine Radical]

33. No problem.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0212072giuliani1.html

Rudy Giuliani's Vulnerabilities
Secret study cited "weirdness factor" among candidate weaknesses

FEBRUARY 12--As he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani will have to contend with political and personal baggage unknown to prospective supporters whose knowledge of the former New York mayor is limited to his post-September 11 exploits. So, in a bid to educate the electorate, we're offering excerpts from a remarkable "vulnerability study" that was commissioned by Giuliani's campaign prior to his successful 1993 City Hall run. The confidential 450-page report, authored by Giuliani's research director and another aide, was the campaign's attempt to identify possible lines of attack against Giuliani and prepare the candidate and his staff to counter "the kinds of no-holes-barred assault" expected in a general election rematch with Democratic incumbent David Dinkins. As he tried to win election in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Giuliani needed "inoculating against" the "Reagan Republican moniker," the vulnerability study reported. "The Giuliani campaign should emphasize its candidate's independence from traditional national Republican policies." The final six words of that sentence are underlined in the study. Additionally, the Giuliani report noted that the candidate needed to make it clear to voters that he was "pretty good on most issues of concern to gay and lesbian New Yorkers" and was pro-choice and supported public funding for abortion. "He will continue city funding for abortions at city hospitals. Nothing more, nothing less." Giuliani's stance on these issues, of course, may leave him vulnerable today with an entirely different electorate. The campaign study was obtained by The Village Voice's Wayne Barrett in the course of preparing "Rudy!," an investigative biography of Giuliani. In its preface, the study notes that it is "tough and hard-hitting. It pulls no punches." Perhaps that is why Giuliani, as Barrett reported, ordered copies of the vulnerability study destroyed shortly after it was circulated to top campaign aides. He surely could not have been pleased to read that his "personal life raises questions about a 'weirdness factor.'" That weirdness, aides reported, stemmed from Giuliani's 14-year marriage to his second cousin, a union that he got annulled by claiming to have never received proper dispensation from the Catholic Church for the unorthodox nuptials. "When asked about his personal life, Giuliani gives a wide array of conflicting answers," the campaign report stated. "All of this brings the soundness of his judgement into question--and the veracity of his answers." The internal study also addresses prospective charges that Giuliani dodged the Vietnam draft and was a "man without convictions" because of his transformation from George McGovern voter to a Reagan-era Justice Department appointee. "In many ways Rudy Giuliani is a political contradiction...He doesn't really fit with the Republicans. Too liberal. Giuliani has troubles with the Democrats, too." On the following pages, you'll find the vulnerability report's cover and preface and sections on Reagan Republicanism, women and abortion, Giuliani's first marriage and divorce, draft dodging, gay issues, racial polarization, and his party registration "flip-flop." (27 pages)

[donco6]

34. 3 wives. Who's gonna ask . . .

"So, Rudy, a few years back a whole lotta people had an issue with the president getting a BJ from someone other than his wife. They felt such a man was "unfit for office." So in the interests of finding out if you're "fit for office" tell me - did you ever cheat on your wife? Any of them?"



Nah. I'm not holding my breath.

[skipos]

35. HRC and Obama beat him in the NYC polls.

As much as he is going to fellate the bible thumpers for the next year, I still don't see him getting the nomination.

[Warren DeMontague]

39. It's NOT going to be Guiliani. One question: Who runs the GOP?

Answer: The Far Right Theocratic Nutbags. That's why McCain is out courting the knuckle-dragging, 6,000 year old Earth, Creationist vote as we speak.

Rudy is pro-choice. His record of moderation on social issues like abortion and gay rights is too big to run away from. He'll never get the nomination. Never.

NEVER. I will eat my hat if I'm wrong, but I'm not.

[eppur_se_muova]

40. Berrrrrrrrnie .... Berrrrrrrrnie .... Bernie Kerik ...

what's he been up to lately?

[Jonathan50]

41. Some of Rudy's negatives

http://www.campaignleadership.com/blogger/uploaded_images/untitled-758314.bmp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/dec/20/rudys_official_web_bio_deep_sixes_his_kids_first_two_wives

From Jimmy Breslin's 10/19/00 column, "Mayor's Drivers Have No Easy Pass", in Newsday:

"The dispatchers had a bad time of it Tuesday night in police headquarters. They were handling the special radio band for the Mayor's cars and squad and not doing it all that well.

This had one driver nervous. Some time back, he had been driving the girl friend, Judi, to Gracie Mansion and he pulled into the driveway with Judi the Girlfriend just as the car was pulling out with Donna Hanover, the Mayor's wife.

The two cars nearly hit each other.

Somehow the two women did not see each other, or pretended not to.

But thereafter the driver became known as Wrong Way.

They had five units operating. One took the Mayor to Yankee Stadium. Another took his son to the stadium. The other car was supposed to take his girlfriend Judi to the Stadium where they would place her in a seat belonging to some big corporation. There was a fourth car, driven by Wrong Way and holding another girlfriend of the Mayor's. He had picked her up somewhere in the 30s. She is know as the Other Girl. They had a corporation seat for her, too.

The fifth and last car had the Mayor's wife and was being discussed on the special radio band right now.

If this seems to be a lot of cars and opportunities for confusion, be advised that it is a precise count of the pool of cars and people required to keep these Tobacco Road romances of Giuliani's in motion, all of it on your money, thousands and thousands of dollars for one baseball game...."

[DonkeyInChinaShop]

44. Note to self: Don't listen to Democrats when they predict the Rep primary

[WilliamPitt]

45. Don't be too sure about that

Rudy has to navigate a whole boatload of Southern and Western primaries, where the base is the predominant voter. He's going to have all that big-city-fetus-killing-gun-grabbing baggage to haul around, and it won't sit well with the party activists.

The GOP base is where Bush's 30-odd percent of support comes from. If anything, they have hardened in their support for their core issues, given the fact that their people are politically on the run.

You heard it here first: Gingrich and Brownback are going to make some noise in these primaries, especially in those aforementioned regions. Bank it.

[saltpoint]

46. Rudy is too thick-headed and unbright to contend in the GOP primaries.

New York prosecutor, multiple marriages/divorces, no foreign policy creds, pro-choice and pro-gay rights stances while NYC mayor (I actually like that, but I'm not a GOp primary voter), and out on the stump and in interviews, he speaks in tedious cliches.

McCain is much less attractive than he was in 2000 to GOP primary voters -- and independents -- but has more luster left than Rudy brings new. If I'm a GOP voter -- god forbid -- I'd honor McCain's sacrifice in VietNam long before Rudy's bullhorn bullshit on 9/11.

Brownback -- self-repressing nutcase that he is -- knows how to work the crowds and the cameras. I think he's going to surprise a few people when the Iowa caucus votes are counted.

And in any of those early debates, I think Chuck Hagel eats Rudy for lunch.

[calimary]

47. Be not afraid! Once they get a load of his pro-choice, pro-gay rights,

and pro-gun control positions, they'll run like hell away from him.

Besides, Jonathan Alter was talking to Al Franken this week about rudy-boy, and said there was a serious temperament issue, as in - giuliani doesn't have the temperament to be president. He's got a nasty temper, flies off the handle, flaky, moody, angry, and bad. Not at ALL well-suited for serious international statesmanship. Not that we have that in the Oval Office now... :eyes: