Posted on 12/21/2005 9:45:31 PM PST by nickcarraway
Veteran Weld-watchers may have noticed a brief flicker of the old Bill Weld yesterday as he came out swinging against the striking New York transit workers. Does Big Red still have enough of the fire that won him the Massachusetts governorship in 1990 to make a difference in New York in 2006?
In an interview with the New York Sun, Weld challenged Democratic front-runner Eliot Spitzer to get tough on the strikers. "If he were governor, I don't think he would be as aggressive as I would be," said the Bay State turned Empire State Republican. "Mr. Spitzer should be asked whether if he were governor, would he fire the members of the executive board and any leaders publicly advocating a strike."
Weld told the paper he would fire the union leaders behind the strike in an effort to break the stalemate that has ground New York City public transportation to a halt and racked up an estimated cost of $400 million a day. This isn't quite the PATCO solution, but it is tiptoeing awfully close.
The move is vintage Weld, who was not your father's moderate Republican during his run on Beacon Hill. In his heyday, Weld was to bureaucracy and public-sector unions what Eliot Spitzer is to Wall Street -- and the taxpayers were his defrauded investors. He snatched highway maintenance away from the unions in eastern Massachusetts and repeatedly touted privatization. During his first gubernatorial campaign, Weld offered this description of his ideal budgetary process: "You assume no program is necessary...no bureaucrat's job is necessary...no line item in the budget is necessary."
The populist-libertarian rhetoric always outstripped the reality. But Weld knew how to tap voters' frustration with government workers, failed bureaucracies, and stultifying red tape in order to appeal to people who under ordinary circumstances wouldn't have pulled the lever for a WASP-y, squash-playing Republican.
But there was a second, less libertarian, part of Weld's appeal also briefly on display in the New York Sun story as he challenged an area of Spitzer's strength: "I was a U.S. attorney for five years and prosecuted 111 public corruption cases and got convictions in 109 of them. Has Mr. Spitzer prosecuted public corruption cases? I'm not really aware that he has."
Weld didn't just market himself as a wrecking ball who would tear down the accretions of big government and establishment corruption. He was also a law-and-order man who would get tough on the bad guys. This was the Bill Weld who pushed for the death penalty, talked up his Reagan-era experience as a federal prosecutor throwing the book at "drug thugs," who was going to "introduce convicts to the joys of breaking rocks."
This was the key to Weld's appeal in Massachusetts. He was a tough conservative Republican on issues like taxes and crime, where even blue-staters don't trust Democrats, but on social issues like abortion, he wouldn't say anything that would frighten the average resident of the Back Bay -- or the Upper East Side. Could that approach work in New York? Two words: Rudy Giuliani. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Giuliani is a Weld supporter.)
But, since declaring his candidacy, this hasn't been the figure Weld has been introducing to the voters of New York. In fact, he hasn't really introduced himself to New Yorkers at all, even though he has been talking about running for governor upon George Pataki's retirement since at least 2000. His run has had all the appearances of a vanity project rather than a serious bid.
As a result, New York voters have been equally offhand with him. In a December Strategic Vision poll, Weld (who received 71 percent of the vote when he ran for a second term in Massachusetts) draws just 25 percent to Eliot Spitzer's 58 percent. This is better than secretary of state Randy Daniels but worse than billionaire Tom Golisano. Weld is similarly situated among Republican primary voters. A Quinnipiac poll put him at 8 percent, ahead of Daniels but well behind Golisano and a single point behind former assembly minority leader John Faso.
Instead of playing to his strengths, Weld has been forced to talk about social issues in a probably futile attempt to secure the Conservative Party's ballot line. Consequently, he has obscured his culturally liberal image by veering to the right on abortion (he now favors banning partial-birth abortion and requiring minors to notify at least one parent) and same-sex marriage (although initially supportive of his former state's Goodridge v. Department of Health supreme judicial court decision, he currently says he opposes gay marriage outside of Massachusetts).
In the final analysis, it may just be that Weld's timing is off. He came on the scene in Massachusetts during the hangover from Michael Dukakis' economic miracle, when the budget was in disarray and the entrenched Democratic establishment was alienating independents with its excess. In New York, he is following a fellow Republican after an uninspiring third term in a cycle where the GOP's appeal is flagging. People looking for a decisive break from the status quo aren't likely to turn to Bill Weld instead of a popular Democrat.
And Eliot Spitzer is no John Silber, the irascible Boston University president who was Weld's Democratic opponent in 1990. Silber's brusque manner and social conservatism created an unlikely coalition of liberals and traditional Republicans that isn't likely to emerge in the New York gubernatorial race.
Despite the long odds, maybe if Weld continues to show signs of life he can make a race out of what is shaping up to be a rout. If not, then at least maybe he'll be able to make it interesting.
W. James Antle III is a senior writer for the American Conservative.
Well, my comments were specifically aimed at William Weld and whatever office he would seek under our party label. If he wants to run, let him do it as a Democrat. Seems to me, like another "political giant", the city-killing ultraRINO apostate named John Vliet Lindsay, they'd not want that bull charging through their china shop, either.
And where Lowell Weicker is concerned, at least he had the common courtesy to LEAVE the Republican party after CT voters bounced his despicable ass from the Senate before he ran as the self-created Independent wingnut party candidate for Governor. That's one thing that puts him just a cut above Herr Weld in the intellectual honesty department.
New York is going to be a disaster zone whether its Spitzer or Weld. I'd just as soon let the disaster fall on the "D" party Governor's watch, that way we might grow a pair by 2010.
Yah...
It was f%*king GREAT to watch Helms stamp out Weld because he favored medical pot...
F*%king INCREDIBLE. (note sarcasm)
Watching Sen. Jesse Helms, one of the Senate giants of the 20th century, stamp that piece of human debris into the ground was one of the top political highlights of the last 10 years. Payback IS a bitch that Slick Willie "War for the Heart & Soul of the GOP" Weld learned, and then some.
Oh please, you are just talking crazy now. I don't care how RINO Weld is in the tax & spend department, he was and is tough on crime and, most imporatantly, is good on the WOT.
Weicker is a standard anti-American hack. He endorsed Howard Dean for God's sake.
Any comparison between them is intellectually dishonest.
And besides, Weld never lost re-election like Weicker did. He'd have won a 3rd term as Governor had he stuck around for it.
And you still haven't managed to justify Helms reasoning. Are you actually going to argue that having the federal government control pot for medical reasons, should be the 'conservative' position? If so, you are a dying breed indeed. Most conservatives I know believe in this thing called 'federalism'.
It's not like Helms was beating on him for his tax policy.
Yah, you don't seem to understand what you are saying.
Weicker endorsed HOWARD DEAN for President.
Miller endorsed Bush.
If I could vote for a Senate with 100 Zell Millers in it, I would.
Heck, I'd vote for 100 Joe Liebermans over Weicker.
If you are trying to say, that generally speaking, you'd rather a moderate R then a 'conservative' (so called) D, I think you are dead on. I certainly perfer the Lisa Murkowskis over the Ken Salazars of this world, but you chose poorly the people you meant to represent this conundrum, because Miller was one of the only D's that was actually better then most R's, and Weicker was one of the only R's that was actually worse then most D's.
"Oh please, you are just talking crazy now. I don't care how RINO Weld is in the tax & spend department, he was and is tough on crime and, most imporatantly, is good on the WOT."
Weld is an abomination and an apostate to the GOP of the highest order. How many times must I repeat this ? Apparently, we need to go over the facts again... please follow me...
U.S. Congress (Weld First Term) 2 Republicans - 8 Democrats
U.S. Congress (Weld-1997) ZERO Republicans - 10 Democrats
Statewide (Weld First Term) Lt Gov, Treasurer, 2 Executive Councilors
Statewide (1999) Lt Gov (elected because it comes with the Gov)
State Senate (Weld First Term) 16 Republicans - 24 Democrats
State Senate (Weld-1997) 7 Republicans - 33 Democrats
State House (Weld First Term) 38 Republicans - 121 Democrats
State House (1999*) 27 Republicans - 131 Democrats
*By the end of Jane Swift's term 4 years later, number dropped to 20 in the House
"Weicker is a standard anti-American hack. He endorsed Howard Dean for God's sake."
Of course Weicker is a lunatic, but what did GOVERNOR Weicker yield AFTER he left the Republican party ? Let's see...
U.S. Congress (Weicker-1991) 3 Republicans - 3 Democrats
U.S. Congress (End of term-1995) No Change
Statewide (Weicker-1991) 1 GOP Sec of State
Statewide (Weicker-1995) 1 Governor, Lt Gov, Treasurer (+2 GOP gain)
State Senate (Weicker-1991) Democrats majority (20 D-16 R)
State Senate (Weicker-1995) Republican majority (19 R-17 D)
State House (Weicker-1991) 62 Republicans - 89 Democrats
State House (Weicker-1995) 61 Republicans - 90 Democrats (1 seat loss)
"Any comparison between them is intellectually dishonest."
Nope, my demonstration is that Weicker did more for the GOP as a loose-cannon 'Rat aligned Indy than Weld did as a Republican - EVER.
"And besides, Weld never lost re-election like Weicker did. He'd have won a 3rd term as Governor had he stuck around for it."
Weicker never ran for a 2nd term as Governor, as he would've lost handily to John Rowland in a rematch. Weld wouldn't have been eligible to run for a 3rd term, besides, he was so BORED with the job after winning reelection, he didn't care to stick around. For that matter, he didn't stick around Massachusetts, either, to live under the disaster he created.
"And you still haven't managed to justify Helms reasoning. Are you actually going to argue that having the federal government control pot for medical reasons, should be the 'conservative' position? If so, you are a dying breed indeed. Most conservatives I know believe in this thing called 'federalism'."
You think Helms stomped that termite into the ground over medical marijuana ? I couldn't give a flying f**k what his position on that issue was. Helms stomped that termite into the ground because Weld (vis a vis his wife) was actively AIDING Helms's DEMOCRAT opponent. He was actively causing substantial destruction to the Republican party, and he wasn't going to let that punk besmirch the GOP any more from a high profile position as Ambassador to Mexico (one offered to him SOLELY because Clinton enjoyed watching Weld actively attack his "fellow Republicans").
Weld was interested in nothing more than destroying the Republican party from within all the while promoting himself. He is, was, and will always be SCUM. The damage he created in Massachusetts (which also, BTW, included appointing the radical court that gave us gay marriage) has NEVER been corrected. His two mental-deficient successors compounded the damage, and the hapless Mitt Romney tried, but the damage was simply too great, and now he has given up trying (and he, too, will probably move back to Utah in January 2007).
Big Red, you have seen the light on Missing Linc Chafee, and Chafee has "technically" done little damage in Rhode Island other than to make himself look like a complete moron, how can you close your eyes and say Weld is somehow "credible", especially when the facts of his reign of terror upon the GOP and the state of Massachusetts are right in front of you ?
Schwaeky, you are aware, are you not, that Weicker left the Republican party 16 years ago, aren't you ? He wasn't putting out feelers to run as a Republican... more likely putting out feelers to run as a DEMOCRAT or as a radical leftist Independent (which he still technically is, if he hasn't formally changed his party affiliation to 'Rat yet).
If William Weld had run against Ted Kennedy in 1994, I would have enthusiastically supported him. But he has no more business running for office in New York than Hillary Clinton.
You seem to have trouble with understanding causal issues. Just because R's didn't win while Weld was Governor, it doesn't necessarily follow that it was his fault. Matter of fact, you have shown 0 evidence that that is the case, actually.
It wasa thing of beauty.
Weld's involvement with the Big Dig is enough to give me the screaming mimis. No thanks.
Big Red, you're blind as a bat where it comes to Weld. Weld was a phony, a fraud, and a complete and total hypocrite. When even liberal Republicans in Massachusetts were crying out to Weld to work on building the party, he actively work to increase the Democrat numbers, and to work on electing a Democrat Senator in North Carolina. His "vision" was a Republican party nationwide that resembled the non-entity that was in Massachusetts. To call him a RINO would be a compliment, he was political AIDS and a trojan-horse traitor actively working for the Democrat agenda. He succeeded in spades.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_14_49/ai_59451074
Another gift of Weld's was to make sure Mitt Romney got sandbagged in his run against Kennedy in '94. He didn't want any "Republican" competition taking the spotlight off his gigantic ego. Weld's a bigger pig than the Swimmer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.