Posted on 05/01/2006 1:55:12 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
DES MOINES, Iowa - Raising money for local Republicans even as he ponders his own political future, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said Monday that Republicans must increasingly be "a big party" that accepts divergent views.
Giuliani said that broad-brush themes, like limited government, ought to define the Republican Party — not hot-button social issues like abortion and gay rights.
"The major thing that we organize around as Republicans is government that puts more reliance on people than government," Giuliani said. "They (Democrats) tend to think of government solutions as most of the answers."
Giuliani was in Iowa to raise money for Jeff Lamberti, a Republican candidate for Congress, and Rep. Jim Nussle (news, bio, voting record), who is running unopposed for the Republican nomination for governor.
Giuliani was also clear he's considering his own future ambitions.
"I am interested in public service again," he said. "My effort this year will be to help Republicans get elected and, quite honestly, a part of it also is saying to myself 'Does it look like I have a chance in 2008?'"
Some strategists believe Giuliani will face significant hurdles in Republican politics because he supports abortion rights and favors tough gun control laws, views that contrast those held by many core Republican voters.
Giuliani is working hard to counter that notion by helping other Republicans get elected, while reaching out to conservatives to ease their concerns.
"I've got a lot of places to go and a lot of people to talk to and a long process to go through to see if it makes sense for me to run for president in 2008," Giuliani said.
Iowa Republican Chairman Ray Hoffman, of Sioux City, declined to handicap Giuliani's outlook in a state where the conservative wing of the party is dominant.
"I hope to really be able to talk to him at some point and say where do you stand on gun control, where do stand on this, where do you stand on that," Hoffman said. "I haven't done that yet."
Meeting with reporters, Giuliani took an immigration stance likely to cause heartburn with GOP conservatives — arguing for a pragmatic approach that both toughens border security but also sets up a mechanism for illegal aliens to earn citizenship.
"If you try to deal with it through either extreme, I think you would make a terrible mistake," Giuliani said. "If you were to pass a law making everybody who is here, allegedly, illegally a criminal with a penalty of five years in jail, we would become a much more insecure country. You drive them farther underground, you push them more toward criminal activity."
Giuliani's swing through Iowa was lucrative. He raised $40,000 for Lamberti's bid to oust Democratic Rep. Leonard Boswell (news, bio, voting record), and later raised $25,000 for Nussle.
so says he..
Some strategists believe Giuliani will face significant hurdles in Republican politics because he supports abortion rights and favors tough gun control laws, views that contrast those held by many core Republican voters.
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Heck, he's almost a perfect match for what the Ca GOP stands for today, even tho they haven't yet updated the party platform to reflect what they are become these days..
It's gonna be a lovely New World Ordor....
One if by land, two if by sea,three when they come from Washington,D.C.
imo
See, here we go. The RINO invasion is starting. We will soon have European style political parties that are all socialist but have different bases.
Us moderates vote too Big tent or no tent.
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy, the G.O.P. is not the Democrat party.
Smaller govt. is better govt. Better govt. is less intrusive govt.And no one has the right to kill babies.
And one of the very reasons that I am no longer a member of the RINOcrat party. Sorry Rudy, I will NOT vote for you or McScreamingManiac.
Like I said, he's very electable in California.
That's sarcasm, right?
The GOP pile looms large of those who would be Prez and thought that the "Big Tent" really meant that the grass roots embraced the idea. We didn't then and we still don't.
Ronnie had to go up against the Big Guns in the Big Tent (back room king makers) but he persisted and won big majorities.
Doesn't matter if the gubmint is big or small if it doesn't work right.
What this self-serving politician thinks is meaningless.
When will Rudy come to grips with the fact that the Most Important Thing is what Republican voters think?
Rudy always does what he feels in HIS best interests----like endorsing Dimocrat Mario Cuomo for governor b/c Rudy calculated it was in HIS best interests to have a Dim in Albany to further HIS political ambitions.
Rudy stepped on so many in his search for power....including the unborn.
Listen up Rudy: "You should be careful who you step on on the way up---because you are going to meet them on the way down."
No thanks Mayor RINO, stay in New York where you fit in better.
Drive-by media thinks that Guliani, McKennedy, and other rino's are the only legitimate spokesmen for the GOP.
The problem is either temporary or permanent, depending upon only one thing. Will something be done to staunch the flow? There *should* be a wall - everything else is a distraction (for now).
It is almost as if nobody is interested in actually dealing with the problem.
Put up the damn wall and send every illegal immigrant who shows up on police radar (theft, murder, rape, traffic violation, parking ticket, vandalism, etc) back to Mexico or wherever their home country is.
Who said this? Rudy who?
The mainstream media keeps putting forth the most liberal candidates as being the "main candidates" and the only ones with a chance of winning. I doubt most of them can survive the primary process, including Giuliani. I won't vote him anyway.
A party that stands for everything stands for nothing.
In the United States, a party platform is not binding to individual candidates. Rudy Guliani has every right to believe what he does and so do all other RINO's.
But that does not mean that the party has to change its collective views to appease them.
Rudy is a scumbag with a good press agent. Kinda like Joe Dimaggio in retirement. ;-)
Could he say this with a straight face???
I'm mean the era of limited government is, sadly, over.
Moderates think for themselves.
Ideologues have to be told what to think by others.
"Moderates" (a very subjective term, BTW) do not have a set of core values, often hemming and hawing, not quite knowing what is the right thing to do, and usually getting it wrong most of the time. These make the very worst kinds of leaders (think Jerry Ford and Sandra Day O'Connor, both liberal RINOs).
You'd be correct about leftist ideologues having to be told what to think, but rightist ones not only think for themselves, but have very well-defined core values, and make the very best leaders, both of movements and of nations. I'm quite proud to be an unapologetic Conservative ideologue, and so are most FReepers.
I respectfully disagree. I'm as moderate as they come and I have very strong "core values". There's a big difference between real values and narrow, rigid values.
Well, let's get down to brass tacks, define your "core values."
My core values are very complicated, something that ideologues are incapable of understanding.
For the sake of respectful argument, I think that this hysteria over abortion doesn't belong in politics. And hysteria over condoms and birth control pills and sperms doesn't belong in politics. I don't believe that at least in an early term fetus there is a sentient human soul.
A real republican like my grandpa would say we should endorse personal responsibility.
No law will ever stop abortion.
The one thing I like about Rudy is that he is the only MOFO to have the balls to throw Arafat out of the Opera.
GWB, Allen, McPain, and the rest of them would never do that.
Do you understand and value gun safety? Can you use a gun? Would you like all guns taken from civilians?
Good luck, Rudy.
Rudy's yet another politician that doesn't understand that people's morals define their politics, not their politics that define their morals.
In that way he's coming across as arrogant and pompous suggesting that people change their morals.
The unborn baby has its own DNA. It has its own heat beat and brain wave 42 days after conception. At 42 days we have a baby with separate distinct human DNA who has a brain wave and a heart beat that pumps his own blood through a separate closed circulatory system with his own blood type. We have a human baby at that point.
All states recognize that death occurs when both the heart beat and the brain wave stop. Since death is the cessation of life, the baby is living when he has both.
We may not be able to say when life starts, but we know when it is present. We also know that life is human and unique. We can’t say scientifically when the life started, but we can say scientifically when it exists. By scientific standards, killing a baby more than 42 days after conception is killing a human being.
Laws don’t stop all murders or all bank robberies. Laws will not stop all abortions. If we do away with all laws that are broken we have a lawless society.
Save your gas money, Rudy, and stay home in your bluest of blue states. We already have candidates who are for gun control and abortion. They are called "Democrats". Rule #1 for the GOP is to reject any candidate from a state that didn't deliver its electoral votes for the Republican candidate in the last three elections. That would save a lot of this meaningless blather about turning the Republican Party into the Democrat Party.
Rudi is the poster boy for the "character doesn't matter" Republicans. For far too many Republicans, morals, ethics, values, and principles don't matter. Winning is everything to them.
For far too many, no issue is important enough to keep them from voting for a Republican. They would vote for Olympia Snow instead of Thomas Jefferson if the two ran against each other.
If Jimmy Carter were a Republican and Reagan a Democrat, they would vote for Carter.
Thankfully, there are still enough conservatives in the country to keep Rudi from ever being president.
Nausea.
Anyone who doesn't see the fallacy of "no problem with gay rights but I'm for small government" has a blindfold over their eyes and corks in their ears.
"Gay rights" must have big government as the enforcer or there would be no such thing. "Gay rights" need big government. One cannot be for gay rights and against big government, so he is a liar as well. I wouldn't vote for him if he ran against Mrs. Bill Clinton. Couldn't they both lose, please?
"There's a big difference between real values and narrow, rigid values."
Could you expand on that statement for our edification, please?
(Does "narrow, rigid" mean unchanging, nonfluid?)
Nobody knows when a soul is created.
The bible says little or nothing about it. A good part of the world believes in some form or other of reincarnation, when all created souls have a purpose.
There's life and DNA and a beating heart in a chicken egg. That doesn't make it a sentient human soul.
The bible says little or nothing about the whole matter. If anything, it connects the soul to the breath (Jesus took his last breath, giving up the spirit). God breathed life into the dust to make Adam, etc.
Indeed! In fact, I'm still a firm believer that most people in this country, whether Dim or GOP, are conservatives to one extent or another. They just don't know it out of ignorance of politics.
Well, it certainly has helped the Episcopal Church grow by leaps and bounds.< /sarcasm >
Jer 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, [and] I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
Among other references.
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