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^^^I would give very serious consideration to voting for Giuliani in 08. Especially
over McCain.
There's no way Republicans will allow a pro-choice candidate to get the nomination. He would be a good candidate though.
Giuliani in '08 might be an uphill battle against McCain
BY GLENN THRUSH
WASHINGTON BUREAU
December 10, 2005, 10:26 PM EST
WASHINGTON -- Rudy Giuliani and John McCain are the top-polling Republican rivals for the White House in 2008, but the two dinner buddies avoid talking about that topic when sharing tortellini and bresaola at Giuliani's favorite Manhattan bistros.
Their latest get-together took place on Nov. 1 at Elio's, an Upper East Side eatery known for its $30 veal chops. They shared a table with McCain confidante Mark Salter, Giuliani's wife Judith and his aide-de-camp Tony Carbonetti. McCain and Giuliani reportedly chatted about the food, sports and Iraq -- everything but 2008.
The same can't be said for the Arizona senator's operatives, who are girding for a clash between the two ans even though Giuliani could be a year away from making a decision. Some even predict the Straight Talk Express will roll over America's Mayor if it comes down to McCain vs. Giuliani.
"I think Rudy would make an attractive secretary of state or secretary of defense in a McCain administration," Marshall Wittmann, a former McCain aide who is still close to the senator, says with a slightly malevolent laugh.
Wittmann is just one of many McCainiacs questioning the viability of a Giuliani candidacy if the ex-mayor decides to put his lucrative business on the back burner and run. They argue that the former mayor's liberal positions on abortion (he favors abortion rights), guns (he's for strict controls) and gay rights (he drew heat from conservatives for once living with a gay couple and implemented New York's landmark domestic partnership law) put him far to the left of McCain and most GOP primary voters.
"In my humble opinion, Rudy wouldn't get out of the gate," said longtime McCain strategist John Dennehy, who helped engineer the Arizona senator's victorious 2000 primary in New Hampshire.
No hostility
There's no schism between the two men, who bonded in 2000, when Giuliani supported McCain's presidential bid and McCain backed Giuliani's abortive Senate run against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Many top advisers to both, including Carbonetti and McCain's New York-based political guru John Weaver, maintain friendly personal relationships.
Still, McCain's camp has good reason to set its sights on the former mayor: He's currently the senator's most serious threat in the 2008 primaries.
Last month, a nationwide Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed Giuliani beating McCain, 34 percent to 31 percent, in the GOP primary. And 20 percent of Republicans polled said they wouldn't vote for the senator under any cir stances, with only 8 percent of voters expressing similar distaste for Giuliani.
"It does seem possible these two guys are headed for some kind of a showdown," said Chuck Yob, a Republican national committeeman from Michigan who maintains a good relationship with both camps.
McCain has steadily expanded a national team of hundreds of political professionals and volunteers. While Giuliani's admirers number in the millions, his organization could fit comfortably into a minivan. His advisers include Carbonetti, a former City Hall chief of staff; longtime friends Peter Powers and Dennison Young; former city Corporation Counsel Michael Hess; and, on occasion, GOP consultant Frank Luntz.
In a bid to pick up President George W. Bush supporters, McCain's backers have been casting him as the president's conservative heir-apparent in key primary states like Michigan, New Hampshire and South Carolina, where the senator suffered his most bitter primary defeat.
The senator's aides underscore the fact he's a pro-gun, anti-abortion conservative who gets an 83 out of 100 rating from the Christian Coalition, even after criticizing the role evangelical Christians played in Bush's 2000 campaign.
Abortion issue a key
McCain supporters think it would only be a matter of time before GOP voters realize Giuliani is to the left of their candidate.
"John and Rudy will never, ever attack each other," added Wittmann, a registered independent who now works for the Democratic Leadership Council's policy arm. "But the difficulty for Rudy, and it's huge, is that he's pro-choice, and Republican primary voters will never pick anybody who doesn't oppose abortion -- period."
So far, Giuliani hasn't shown signs of running; in October, he told reporters it would be a "couple years" before he made up his mind.
"The mayor has been very busy working in his business, and starting up his new law firm, Bracewell Giuliani," said Sunny Mindel, Giuliani's spokeswoman.
But McCain's people are keeping up a wary watch, even monitoring how many minutes of network airtime Giuliani gets compared with their man. They routinely tap their contacts around the country for upticks in Giuliani's activity, sources said.
Recently, there have been signs of political re-awakening for Giuliani. In November, he met with some GOP leaders during a business trip to Michigan, a battleground state that McCain won in 2000. And the former mayor plans to host a $5,000-a-head fundraiser at Manhattan's Club Havana tomorrow to help out seven GOP members of Congress in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Indiana.
(Giuliani was invited to a recent New York fundraiser for McCain's Straight Talk America PAC but couldn't attend. It's not clear if McCain has been invited to Giuliani's event.)
People who have talked to the former mayor said he seems genuinely ambivalent about a presidential run and was chastened by the harsh public scrutiny that doomed his former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik's bid to become Homeland Security secretary last year.
"Does he really want to go through that, too?" said a person close to Giuliani's camp. "My gut tells me he's not going to run."
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
^^^I would give very serious consideration to voting for Giuliani in 08. Especially
over McCain.
Even in light of his pro-choice stance?
I thought that a pro-life stance was the sine qua non to a Republican nomination.
National security takes precedence over social issues right now.
No, I am not one of the dimm-o-crap types. I am not personally for abortion, but I
am smart enough to know that it will more than likely never be overturned. But
like ES I consider the country as a whole, not just a little sliver of some problem.
I would even vote for a Democrat if they were a true leader and thought of the
country and not the party vs a Republican who thought only of party. You see I do think there is a difference between a
Democrat and dimm-o-crap. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Are you talking to me?
What is notable is that both Guliani and McCain are more "moderate" cantidates, at least socially. Someone at the GOP must know what they are doing, and the DNC should take notes instead of going more and more radical.
I like McCain and I vote for him before I'd vote for Rudy....that adulterer!
McCain won't get the RNC nomination....
Now maybe if he was Condi's VP or G's VP it might happen.
But he got little to close for comfort to some liberals for the hardcores to give him votes at the convention.
kiss ass
Then the "hardcores" need to look in the dictionary under the heading Conservative, fiscal.
Neither McCain of Guiliani will get the nomination, although I can certainly see Guiliani being on a Jeb Bush ticket, this is, if Hillary decides not to run, otherwise I see a Jeb Bush/Condi Rice versus Hillary Clinton/? ticket.
another Bush?
The NeoCons have to stay in power, otherwise they go to jail.
I'm guessing Jeb's the one that's gonna set it right?
God help us.
Honestly, I don't see W lasting 3 more years. We'll see where things go in 06.I'm guessing Jeb's the one that's gonna set it right?
I hope he gets the boot. This country is in such terrible hands right now.
Cheney is gone in 06, maybe early 07. Bank it.
I hope not.
McCain could make it through the GOP primary (albeit at age 107). I don't see Giuliani being able to do so.
My-o-my. Tis the Christmas season, Santa are you listening to the Libs. They
don't want something. Their President!
Well you could very well be right. He has the press on his side, right now.
But it is a long ways off. We live in such a fickle society now days.
The red meat conservatives won't support McCain. The money guys are a different story and they are taking a shine to the Bush hugger so money and name recognition won't be a problem.
Rudy G. is too socially liberal for the party which has lurched to the right. He also has skeletons in his closet that will eventually doom his candidacy if he decides to run.
These two guys lead in the polls now because of name I.D. only. If the race moves forward as it is today, some fringe candidate (Brownback, George Allen or someone else) will knock of the other Coulter Republicans and consolidate that base and be McCain's main rival. They will prevail if that is how the race unfolds.
However, the joker is still out there. 43 and his ego will want to have a say in who is selected. As Dan said, Cheney's ticker will get worse and he will step aside in '06 allowing Junior to pick his successor. Probably it will be Condi (or Harriet Miers). Bush will receive a rebound in the polls due to this as Cheney is as popular Freddie Krueger backstage at a Miss America contest. Cheney being thrown from the train will also be viewed as helping Republican congressional candidates. Say goodnight .
I have believed all along Jeb would run in '08 and be the Bush pick but since W's numbers are in a freefall, Jeb is stained with the name and will likely not run in '08.
Despite Bush's dismal popularity he still gets a job approval from the Repubs in the 70 to 80 percent range. That will be enough to get Cheney's replacement the nomination.
They will then be trounced in the general election Diebold nothwithstanding.
Yes unfortunetly for you democrats we will chose our cantidates.. *S*...
Governor Mitt Romney is a Massachusetts politician with a long, narrow face, an impossible shock of hair and presidential ambitions. He's also pretty tall. But any resemblance to another recent Massachusetts politician who ran for President evaporates the moment Romney opens his mouth: his demeanor and metabolism are the opposite of John Kerry's—informal, conversational, enthusiastic and speedy.
Romney in 2008
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