I happen to be a deep-South conservative, too.

I'm strongly pro-life, I'm against gay marriage on secular cultural grounds, I'm a "from my cold, dead fingers" guy on gun rights.

I'd vote for Guiliani in a heartbeat. Do some of his positions dismay me? You bet. Is his personal history a cause for concern? Of course.

BUT I watched him clean up New York City, cutting crime rates in half and restoring neighborhoods that had been written off for decades. I watched his calm, firm, strong leadership after 9/11. I've watched him since.

There are three main areas of issues in today's world:

1. War on Terror and related issues
2. Economic and budget issues
3. Other baloney

On what's important, Rudy's right. On what is less important, who cares? The President has little effect on abortion, gun issues, or state marriage concerns. He is the point man on terrorism and national security.

On those issues, I trust Rudy. He's clearly qualified - NYC has a higher population than 39 states and higher GDP than 43.

Guiliani - Sanford. A dream ticket.

Jim Addison:

Jim I love your post! However, I would make one change. Rudy/Condi would, in my opinion, make an unbeatable combination. Rudy is certainly smart enough for the job, so there is nothing more to say here. Condi is the most intelligent woman in politics and has a tremendous handle on foriegn affairs, that Rudy lacks. Yes, there are a lot of racists that will baulk at the combo, but there will be enough blacks and feminists to offset that. Most importantly, I like the woman.

Rudy has a track record of getting things done and avoiding the needless pontificating that the Dem hopefuls do.

You could see how he cleaned up NYC, and brought back more investment into the city. That is a solid record of achevement, which the junior Senator from NY, the windsurfer from Mass, or the plagerist from Delaware cannot match.

Giuliani is my first choice of the GOP candidates, and I was born & raised in Mississippi. Southerners don't vote for some one just because they were reared in the South (i.e., Al Gore couldn't even carry TN & AK!. They look for men/women with strong character & strong leadership.

I usually hate it when people base their votes on one issue such as the unions, minorities, and the pro/con abortionists commonly do. But at this time there is no other issue for me but national safety & the survival of western civilization. We need a serious person in the president's office---I vote Guiliani.

Also, if Roe v. Wade were overturned (which is fine by me), abortions would still be legal in most states.

What people forget is that he doesn't need to sweep the south like Bush did. In fact, Rudy would put half of New England in play. Not only would he be able to win a few barely Kerry states, he might even be able to take NY, at which point the game is pretty much over. If he is smart with his VP, he could steam roll the opposition. Now, if he was as good a Pres as he was a Mayor, I'd be a very happy man.

Kristian,
Great observation, about putting some blue states in play for the Republicans, and I doubt a Giuliani/Rice ticket would take any Southern states out of play for the Republicans.
Some people see the South as not being very politically sophisticated, and maybe we are not. Maybe at some point in the future where we can become as sophisticated as Massachusetts, in that we can elect people like Kennedy(drunkard), Kerry(gigolo), and the (fudge-packing) Barney Frank.

Rudy (without or without Condi) is a imminently-defeatable presidential candidate.

There, having declared that so I hope every reader here will strongly support his nomination in an effort to prove my statement incorrect. The Democrats couldn't wish for a better outcome. The New York school system still sucks, and his false claims regarding his role in reducing crime in New York (read Freakonomics!) will "out" him as a liar.

Pair him with Rice (cue the newsreel footage of her shopping for shoes while New Orleanians drowned) and we have a slam-dunk Democrat win of the White House.

Rudy is clearly the strongest candidate in either party. He is spot-on on the most important issues currently facing the country and indeed the world at-large. His leadership credentials and strong track record as mayor of NY are unquestionable.

Look for Rudy to get strong support from all regions of the country in a presidential run, and YES that includes the deep South! The South will rise to the occasion and in the procees shed its negative (& unfair) stereotype once and for all as being provincial and insular !!

Hell, I'm from SC, as my name clearly indicates.

I'd vote for Rudy so fast it'd make your head spin.

Do I agree with all of his positions? No, but I don't agree with a lot of Bush's either. The big ones, though, Rudy is dead-on about and he has "that vision thing" that few others possess.

The Democrats couldn't wish for a better outcome. The New York school system still sucks, and his false claims regarding his role in reducing crime in New York (read Freakonomics!) will "out" him as a liar.

Yes, it's PURE coincidence that NYC's crime rate plummeted when he came into office. Sheer coincidence.

The authors of that book are bigots (remember the heat Bennett got for mentioning that if you ignored morality, you could justify killing black babies to lower the crime rate? It was initially proposed BY THOSE AUTHORS IN THE PAPER THE BOOK WAS BASED UPON) and sketchy on a lot of their details.

Pair him with Rice (cue the newsreel footage of her shopping for shoes while New Orleanians drowned) and we have a slam-dunk Democrat win of the White House.

Except it'd require y'all to run somebody and, damn, you have some of the shittiest candidates in recorded political history.
-=Mike

While Rudy isn't my first choice, he is someone I could easily support. I would love either Rice or Allen in the Veep spot if he were the Prez choice.

and, Lee, I DID read "Freakonomics", adn even agreed with some of the conclusions. But one thing remains, Rudy DID clean up New York. The changing demographics and other factors cited in there are NOT what got Times Square re-vitalized, and NOT what got the agressive homeless population moved out, etc. Rudy's vision and strength in carrying OUT that vision is what cleaned up New York. Go back and read the news articles and editorials of the time and look at the massive outcries against what he was doing...he WAS the focal point!

I'm from the Deep South and would vote for Rudy, especially if Condi is on the ticket. Hell I'd love Condi on the ticket (she is incredibly qualified) if for no other reason than to watch the Race Baiting Dem's try and smear her without betraying thier bigotry.

Rudy/Condi in '08? I'm in.

Pair him with Rice (cue the newsreel footage of her shopping for shoes while New Orleanians drowned) and we have a slam-dunk Democrat win of the White House.

I got news for you, Lee: Running some mythical "generic" Democrat is one thing. Rudy going up against any of the actual Democrats now supposedly in contention, however, only reveals how off-base your assertion really is.

Also, it's nice to see you think the Dems can win only by running a negative campaign, though. Shows you how bankrupt the Dems are.

"but "God, guns and gays" are not the only issues that determine our votes down here in Dixie. "

Lorie, liberals read this blog...would you stop letting stuff like that out of the bag before Howard Dean gets wind of it? Cripes, next thing we know you'll be posting about how Bush isn't running in 2008...

Falze: "Lorie, liberals read this blog...would you stop letting stuff like that out of the bag before Howard Dean gets wind of it? Cripes, next thing we know you'll be posting about how Bush isn't running in 2008..."

Falze, while you are correct in chiding Lorie for spilling the beans, you forget that since Dimocrats can't retain anything there is no real damage done.

How else to explain their continued embracing of appeasement in foreign policy, higher taxes in domestic policy, and Howard Dean?? :)

Rudy vs Hillary or Russ Feingold? I think he would have those two donkey's bowels dribbling when it comes to national security.

As a Texan (who are sometimes confused with Southerners by uncultured Yankees), I disagree with Guliani on a wide range of social issues. I do agree with his "take charge" attitude and "no holds barred" approach to getting things done.

As it is, I don't know enough about Guliani to tip my vote to his favor in the primaries. There are two things that Guliani could do to solidify the conservaative vote for himself:

1) Promise to wage a war on Federal spending.
2) Promise to reform the various departments, especially the state department, the CIA (not exactly a department, but might as well be seeing how they think they can operate independently), and the department of homeland security.

Those are the two most important items that would win my vote for any Republican primary candidate and which will probably be left undone by Bush.

Lee,
What is your dream ticket for the dems in 2008? Be specific and tell us why, please.
Seriously, I am very curious as to what ticket you think could beat Guiliana/Rice.

Is it not amazing how "smart" old "pucker puss" (lee lee) is? Wait maybe that should be dumb. Or could it be neither? Maybe he is just your average asshole.

I would consider voting for Guiliani if he wasn't such a rabid anti-gunner. I don't want to see Guiliani strip gun rights away from the entire nation as has been done in New York. New Yorkers have been stripped of their rights to defend themselves on their own ground, and to me, that's the last line of defense. As we saw in New Orleans, when the cops won't/can't show up, the only thing standing between you and the bad guys is a firearm. When you strip that away, you're just another easy mark waiting to get picked off. I'm hoping for a Romney run in 2008. If it came down to Romney vs. Guiliani, I'd vote Romney. If you threw Rice in there, Rice would get my vote. Now ... if Guiliani softened his anti-gun views enough to get a nod from the NRA ... That's a completely different ballgame.

jhow66,
Think you are right about Lee. I did not want to feed the troll, just anxious to see if he can be honest.
He pegs the assholometer here on my computer every time I read one of his comments.

Lee,
Rudy (without or without Condi) is a imminently-defeatable presidential candidate.

Imminent means 'about to occur' and in no way does his campaign kick-off show any indication of imminent defeat. Do you want to tell us how it's about to end or just suggest we read Freakonomics! again for some obscure statitical correlation unrelated to his imminent political downfall? Freakonomics! exposes cheating public teachers so I guess you'd be for censoring the teachers union for funding a liberal agenda? Dumbass. Learn the meaning of your big words to help us understand your ascertions, or shut your pie-stained cherry hole.

(My apologies for feeding the troll.)

I don't know if I could support Guiliani or not. Socially he's way too far to the left for me, but he's spot-on when it comes to foreign policy. I, too, am worried about our 2nd Amendment rights, and I don't know how much influence Guiliani would have on that issue as President.

I guess it all depends on who else runs for the GOP spot.

SilverBubble,

I would agree with you were it not for the war on terror. We need someone who will persecute this war as agressively as Bush and Rudy would do that. Look how he cleaned up NYC. He took a pre-emptive stance against crime and it worked (vs. the normal re-active stance most cities have).

I'm not at all concerened about his view on social issues right now. They won't mean anything if terrorists keep attacking us.

The more I think about Rudy, the more I like him.

I am glad to see postings breaking the sterotype of the South. Sure he has had multiple marriages and carried on an open affiar while he was married and Mayor. But just as you folks looked the other way when Clinton did it,(without the divorce because everyone knows Hillary like Condi is a lesbian)you look the other way for Rudi. Because you realize that what someone does for his City/State/Country is more important than the morality of his private life.

Drew,
I don't know why you weren't paying attention during the Clinton years (maybe you were too young?) but your description of Bill Clinton's behavior is lacking.

If Clinton had donw what Rudy did, I would not have thought much of him as a husband, but it would not have been a huge deal. He would not have been the first politician, or even the first President, to have been unfaithful to his wife. What he did, just to refresh your memory, was let a girl just a few years older than his daughter, and an intern at that, into the Oval Office to perform sex acts with cigars and God knows what else. He had her "service him" in the Oval Office while talking on the phone to congressmen about our soldiers in Bosnia. He had phone sex with her (which was an incredible security risk opening himself up to blackmail) on dozens of occasions. He met with this young intern in the Oval Office for sex acts on more occasions than he met with some of those in his own cabinet. He lied about it over and over again, and until DNA evidence was presented, tried to smear the young intern as a lying, psycho stalker. He dragged others into the mess using his high power friends to try to get the young intern a job...and on and on.

I didn't even mention Kathleen Willey or Juanita Broaddrick or any of the other women who had private eyes sent to scare them. I didn't even mention any of the "bimbo eruptions" in Arkansas or Paula Jones or Gennifer Flowers who Clinton tried to get (I don't remember if he was successful) a state job.

Yeah, Drew, Rudy Giuliani is just exactly like Bill Clinton -- only in your world.

Yeah, Lorie, and after Bill Clinton did all those shocking, dastardly things that you claim he did, he left office with an approval rating 25 to 30 points higher than what Dumbya has now.

Think about it.

You see, Lorie, lying to cover up an extra-marital affair (an affair that Clinton's own wife would ultimately forgive him for) just isn't quite as significant in the eyes of most people as is lying to bring our country into war.

It's amazing that people just don't *get* that what Clinton did wrong had nothing to do with infidelity.

Imagine some other boss treating an employee that way.

For my mom it was a betrayall of ALL feminist progress made during her lifetime. A low level female assistant being treated like an executive perk, a payroll prostitute. It's like something out of the dark ages... and the people supposed to be about feminism excused and supported him.

For me it was that he lied. Lying matters. It's not the same thing as being discrete, to lie when you are caught. It would be like Charles slandering Camilla when there were rumors. Though it's not as though Clinton viewed Monica as a human being. He certainly wasn't having a *relationship* with her. But still, just because he's personally a male pig doesn't mean that much. What matters is he lied. It's a child's refusal to take adult responsibility for their actions and rather upsetting in a president.

And the TRUTH is, that had he admitted the "affair" the upset wouldn't have lasted more than a week or two. It would have been over. Just like it got over... eventually. People *liked* him. Lots of people *liked* him. So a person has to wonder what sort of mental process went into lying about it for so long? Was/is dishonesty that much of a habit?

Herman, no one believes that Hillary cared where Bill put his thing. No one sane believes that Bill thought that Hillary cared where he put his thing.

Do you think that after all those years that she didn't *know*?

Herman did you even read my comment? You reference only the lying about sex. You just brush right over the other sex scandals of the Clinton years. If any Republican did those things, or was even accused of those things, they would be done.

Much of Clinton's behavior is known as sexual harrassment, not an affair. At least in this century it is. The media willingly went along with the "lying about sex" line the Clinton machine sold them. Had the mainstream media reported those other stories, or even all the aspects of the Monica story, he would not have been so popular. The economy is what bought Clinton his poll numbers and he trashed that leaving Bush a recession that started just before he left office.

At the time I was not blogging, but I told anyone who would listen that what bothered me most about Monica, once I got past the "eeeeww factor," was the stupidity of it and the disregard for national security. He opened himself up to blackmail and who knows whatelse. To compare the lifelong history of Bill Clinton's escapades (his use of public employees and resources to pay off girlfriends, the many women he has had make accusations against him of sexual harrassment and worse, the trashing he did of women like Monica who dared to speak the truth) to an extra-marital affair is just beyond my comprehension.

My point is simple..Mayor Rudy married with kids
did more than oral..he initially lied about it..
Now just as it showed Clinton to be what he is..a liar degenerate molester...who used his power
Rudy's background will be an issue

Besides none of that matters...Rudy is a supporter of "Choice" the rabid fundies in the Republican Party would NEVER have Rudy because he believes our government should not control womens bodies. Focus on Family etc..runs your party..look at Bush's only veto.

Not that Lee hasn't been thoroughly Fisked in the comments above, but it should also be noted that the Mayor has little control over NYC schools, and that their wretched condition can be only attributed to years of Democrat-supported union abuse.

It appears Lee is actually the long-lost brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il. His full name is Menta Lee Il.

;-)

What does oral have to do with anything? Infidelity is infidelity. Anyhow, people *can* understand lying about an affair and even people who strongly disagree with divorce on religious grounds know that they are a tiny minority.

Reagan was divorced.

Those who think that people who were upset about Clinton were "fundamentaly" upset because he was messing around behind his wife's back are in error. Being in error means that conclusions reached using that "fact" will be WRONG.

Drew, I don't know what to think about you. You can say reasonable, even nice things and then you come with this.

If you believe that pro-life is about the government controlling women's bodies you are wrong. If you don't understand the issue *as it is percieved* by those who are pro-life you can NOT reliably predict how they will react to Giuliani's pro-choice beliefs.

Something I wrote about this on my own blog and will try to summarize here... this sort of misconception, prejudice even, toward the religious right is insulting to them. They will react to it. Every time that someone opposing Giuliani brings up something in his dark past, not out of their *own* moral disapproval but because they believe that the religious right can be manipulated, it's going to backfire.

I expect that we'll see pictures of Giuliani in drag (I heard he did a fundraiser) and we'll hear about his infidelities (as if we don't know about them) and we'll hear about the anti-gun thing and the pro-choice thing over and over... but if it's coming out of the mouth of a Democrat it will be seen as a declaration that the religious right are a bunch of imbicilic hicks who can be manipulated like that and it will make people mad. And they won't be mad at Giuliani.

Just like Kerry and Edwards making their oh so delicate points to mention that Mary Cheney is a lesbian. It just won't work.

If the religious right is seen as holier than thou the secular left is doing it's darned best to hold the title of more enlightened than thou. It's insulting. It's insulting that they seem to think that the religious right is too stupid to realize when they are being insulted.

All Giuliani really *needs* for conservative creds is the willingness to meet terrorism head on and a conservative economic policy (the less socialist the better.) All he needs to do for *all* the rest is say it's up to Congress.

Which it is.

Yeah, Lorie, and after Bill Clinton did all those shocking, dastardly things that you claim he did, he left office with an approval rating 25 to 30 points higher than what Dumbya has now.

Think about it.

The gift of low expectations. But, nice to see you tie morality to approval polls. Makes for some really set-in-stone beliefs there.

My point is simple..Mayor Rudy married with kids did more than oral..he initially lied about it..

Under oath in a court of law?

I bet not.

Now just as it showed Clinton to be what he is..a liar degenerate molester...who used his power Rudy's background will be an issue

By who? The Democrats?

You're kidding, right?

Keep in mind that the rampant sexual harrassment he was involved with was the LEAST of Clinton's transgressions.

Besides none of that matters...Rudy is a supporter of "Choice" the rabid fundies in the Republican Party would NEVER have Rudy because he believes our government should not control womens bodies

Really? I won't vote for Rudy because of that? I'm amazed to know that. I thought I was going to, but apparently, you know me better than I do.

Whew --- thank God the Dems still campaign based on caricatures.

Do I like that Rudy cheated on his wife? Absolutely not. It's deplorable.

Would I vote for him? Without a second thought. The man turned NYC from a toilet into what it is now.
-=Mike

While he tied that argument to the 2006 midterm elections, the real message was clear: The coming presidential election isn't about the Confederate flag, it's not about Roe v. Wade, it's not about whether New York's former mayor has had some marital troubles — it's about who will lead America in the War on Terror. Some conservatives might not see eye-to-eye with this Blue-stater on social issues, but this is a new world we live in.

Ryan Sager's observation is quite apt. In the end the American people will vote for the person who they deem best wartime leader.

It is also an observation that will be totally lost on the Democrats and their "nutroots" like Lee and Herman. Their ideas are are so September 10th in a post September 11th world. Their perceptions on who and what the average American is serves to show just how ignorant and biased they are.