41 posts tagged “giuliani”
According to Rudy: "The winner of Florida will win the nomination."
Looks like it is McCain v. Romney the way the current polls are shaping up.
More proof that Giuliani's gamble is not paying off.
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds Mitt Romney with a slight lead in Florida’s Republican Presidential Primary. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani are close behind in what may develop into a three-man race. It’s Romney at 25%, McCain at 20%, and Giuliani at 19%. Romney has picked up seven points over the past week while McCain and Giuliani each inched up a point.
People pay attention to what is happening in these other states. If you don't show up in these first contests, it shows. Currently, Giuliani only leads in one Florida poll and only by one point.
Well, maybe Giuliani will get something in the end. Like... Secretary of Homeland Security.
Is there a front runner right now for the Republicans? Or is it still in the air? I believe that McCain is emerging as the guy for the Republicans and I think he has the best chance at winning the presidency if he is up against Clinton and especially if he is up against Obama. I am not sure if Giuliani is that guy anymore, especially with his 9/11 response to every issue.
Mark Steyn has a good post over at The Corner.
After tonight, you would have to think McCain is on course to be the nominee. He's won the two traditionally determinative primaries and he's the senior candidate in a party that rewards seniority.
It's also clear that Huck can't get beyond his base, and Fred is the insurgent who never insurges, and Mitt is a dogged but weak campaigner whose tactical judgments seem to be self-defeating (see Ramesh below), and Rudy's "strategy" has been to take a national lead and then see it wither to single digits in every state that schedules an actual vote in hopes that it will nevertheless decline sufficiently slowly to enable him to eke out a narrow victory in Florida. As I said earlier, if he pulls it off, he'll be a genius, and those of us who scoffed will look like chumps.
But I'd be surprised if he does. [...]
Personally, Giuliani aligns with my political opinions, but his strategy is untested and seems to be based in fantasy. My guess is that it falls flat, but what do I know. In the end, if he pulls out a miracle in Florida and on Super Tuesday and emerges as a renewed presence in the Republican nomination process, he will almost assure a brokered convention.
I am not sure how a brokered convention will play out. Maybe it will get people more interested in politics because it means the nomination for the party will be up in the air so close to election day compared to previous election cycles. Maybe it will get them more frustrated because we live in such an impatient country.
On thing is for sure... there will be more politics in politics this election year.
Paul at Powerline writes about the "double-edged sword" that Giuliani has lived by during the recent events in the Republican primaries:
...Huckabee's rise could signal trouble for Giuliani. That's because of the backlash to Huckabee's rise, and the backlash to that backlash. The rise of Huckabee has produced extremely harsh criticism of the former Arkansas governor on multiple grounds, though not by Giuliani personally. That criticism (along with Huckabee's rather self-pitying response to it) appears to be fueling resentment on the part of some evangelical voters and perhaps other social conservatives. The notion, as articulated by Huckabee, is that evangelicals are expected dutifully to "suck it up" and support the Republican nominee whatever his level of commitment to social conservatism, but as soon as one of "their own" seeks the nomination, he is slapped down by the party "elite." As I've noted, this theme makes little sense, but there it is.
But let us not forget who supports Giuliani, none other than Pat Robertson. If Robertson has any pull with the social conservatives, you would think that this notion of social conservatives "seeking their own" would be bunk? You would think that Giuliani would have their support...?
Well, in any event, it looks like Robertson has heard something through his prayers, and it sounds like it might not be good for the Republicans. But then again, maybe it was wishful thinking on his part that the message was not from god anyway. ;)
Watch the video.
Hmmm... It didn't look good for "HC" either. President Obama in our future, perhaps?
So Pat... it goes from god... to you... to "my lips are sealed"... to back to fasting/prayer in hope for another answer?
Giuliani on his primary strategy via the NY Post:
Giuliani did not air a single TV ad in Iowa, and his 15 trips here were far fewer than front-runners Romney and Huckabee.
Instead, he has focused on winning Florida on Jan. 28 and more than 20 delegate-rich states on Feb. 5, including New York.
Giuliani defended the strategy yesterday and brushed off questions about his slide in the polls.
"When you get to Florida and the Feb. 5 states, we're ahead in some cases by large percentages and in some case by closer percentages," Giuliani told Fox News. "We believe it's a good strategy and it's going to work."
Considering the national polls (as of this post) are very tight at the moment between Huckabee, Romney, McCain, Thompson, and Giuliani, the only way I see Giuliani having success with this strategy is if each of the early states is taken by different candidates. This will further make the nominee pool look muddled to later state voters, giving Giuliani a shot. If, however, a clear candidate takes these early states, the perception of a clear emerging winner might push Giuliani further down the ladder and out of the race. The human psyche likes to glom onto an apparent winner.
Here's to a muddled race.
Patrick Ruffini's theory on Rudy's current fall:
But this strategy of TKO may still work, as Jim Geraghty at National Review Online explains:...he’s looking for a TKO rather than a decisive knockout punch. That he won’t go mano-y-mano with any of the opponents who matter. And that he doesn’t care about retail politics (in fact, the IA and SC blowback alone has probably contaminated him in NH). Perceived electability is not just poll numbers in the general, but how someone conducts themselves in the primary. Do they fight, or do they try and win on a technicality? That’s a proxy for how they will perform against the Clinton machine, and voters pick up on those kinds of signals.
Since he surged, Huckabee has been getting much tougher coverage, as any reader of this blog has seen. Romney's still getting hit from a lot of different directions - his dad and Martin Luther King, his immigration positions, the usual flip-flop charges, etc. If McCain wins New Hampshire, you'll see him get coverage that's much tougher. His foes will start reciting immigrationdeal-campaignfinancereform-gangof14-votedagainstBushtaxcuts over and over again. You'll see every picture he's ever taken with Ted Kennedy dominating the airwaves. If Fred Thompson surges, he'll get knocked around, too. And there's still some possibility of the murder-suicide effect; if any candidate goes too negative on another, the mud splashes on both of them.
So it's possible that by the time we get to Florida, most of the other Big Five have won only one or two states and has higher negatives from several tough primary battles. Rudy can swoop in, win delegate-rich Florida, and then try to execute his big state Super Duper Tuesday strategy, and pound home, electability, electability, electability...
It's not a perfect path to the nomination, but right now, no one has one...
Who knows how this is all going to play out, but one thing is for sure... It is getting interesting... GO RUDY!
Kind of funny, kind of cheesy.
Domenico Montanaro reporting on the Iowa Christian Alliance:
Gee... Mr. Scheffler... that was very Christian of you...It's no secret that Iowa Christian Alliance president Steve Scheffler isn't a Rudy fan. But tonight, within spitting distance of Giuliani’s rival GOP candidate Romney, Scheffler explicitly urged Iowa Christians to oppose Giuliani in the race for the nomination. "If our party nominates this guy," he told a crowd at a Dubuque gathering of the ICA, "we will see a bloodbath at the polls like we've never seen before."
Scheffler went on to slam Giuliani's position on same-sex marriage, life issues and gun rights. "Rudy Giuliani cannot be elected," he said, citing the ex-mayor's differences with social conservatives. "We cannot afford to nominate somebody who's out of touch with the base."
I guess when Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act supporting regime change and when he went with his little four day bombing campaign known as Operation Desert Fox, he wasn't seriously contemplating military options in removing Saddam Hussein. They were just for show. (And don't forget his continued support of the no fly zones during his presidential tenure.)
And let's not forget what Al Gore, his Vice President, had to say about Iraq when it was politically convenient to do so...
So hey, seeing a Clinton doing politically expedient things (like appeal to his base while stumping for his wife and say he didn't support the Iraq war from the beginning) shouldn't come as a surprise to any of us... The question is do you want somebody like that in the White House? I mean Hillary flip-flopped on her support for the war too... (But I guess to Bill it isn't a flip flop if you try to correct the history from the beginning of the position)...
Look at Rudy, at least he can admit to his mistakes...
HH: All right. Yesterday on this program, Governor Romney brought up Bernie Kerik. Fair game or below the belt?
RG: Of course, of course it’s fair game. It’s a mistake. I admit that it’s a mistake.
HH: Okay.
RG: I made a mistake. I should have checked him out much more carefully. Part of it came about because he had such excellent results as a corrections commissioner. He brought down violence in the New York City jails by 90%. There was a whole piece on 60 Minutes about it. And he brought down violence in New York City by 20-30%. And he was a hero on September 11, and one of the most decorated officers in New York City, in terms of as a police officer, saving other people’s lives. He had a whole aspect to his personal life that we didn’t know about. And it was my responsibility. We should have known about it, and not put him forward.
Choices are... politicians who can admit to their mistakes and politicians who can't. I prefer the former...
This just goes to show you that even though Republicans tout themselves as an inclusive party, for some of those on the religious right it is just too much to fathom a pro-choice candidate.
A powerful group of conservative Christian leaders decided Saturday at a private meeting in Salt Lake City to consider supporting a third-party candidate for president if a pro-choice nominee like Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination.
[...]
Dobson, who is one of the nation's most outspoken Christian leaders, has previously announced that he does not support Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain or former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson as nominees for the Republican Party.
So by my calculations -- only Romney (Huckabee is a longshot for the nomination) would have their support. And he used to be pro-choice!
Splitting the conservative vote with a third party candidate will only ensure that Clinton will get into office and last time I checked... she wasn't anti-abortion. Remember 1992 and that Ross Perot thing? That is how the last Clinton got into office.
The President has nothing to do with abortion other than who they nominate for the Supreme Court. And the last time I checked the way the Senate is locked up (basically) 50/50 with a 60 vote filibuster -- the odds of an anti-abortion judge getting onto the court is nil. Repeat nil. Thus, the current law of the land will stand. Sorry... But a non-vote for the Republican will be a vote for Clinton and she will surely send a pro-choice nominee to the Hill.
There are greater fishes to fry right now in the world. Iraq and the war on terrorism are the number one issue on the table and if we let those issues go to hell in a hand basket because you don't want a pro-choice judge to get nominated to the Supreme Court... well then... No wonder I am an atheist.
This logic astounds me... Just look at the reality of the situation...
