Posted on 01/07/2007 11:46:24 AM PST by wagglebee
THERE is one woman who could cause Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, more problems than Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House: she is Donna Hanover, his second wife, writes Sarah Baxter.
Hanover, an actress and broadcaster, was enraged by Giuliani’s flagrant infidelity towards the end of their 18-year marriage and the divorce case was vicious. Giuliani’s advisers fear that she could be a loose cannon in the 2008 campaign.
Giuliani was acclaimed as the “mayor of America” for his heroic role during the attacks on September 11, 2001 and is revered for his leadership. At the time he was living in the spare room of an apartment belonging to gay friends after Hanover forced him out of Gracie Mansion, the official residence.
Hanover refused to confirm that she would vote for Giuliani as mayor of New York even when she was married to him. “What kind of wife is that?” Raoul Felder, Giuliani’s lawyer, fumed. “She’s essentially saying she’s not going to vote for him.”
Hanover once stood outside a shower at Gracie Mansion, expecting to confront Judith Nathan, Giuliani’s mistress, now his third wife. In the event, a startled golfing friend of Giuliani’s emerged.
Hanover was also accused of a lack of sympathy while the former mayor was battling prostate cancer, by banishing him to a spare bedroom and exercising noisily on a treadmill at 5am.
New Yorkers relished the details of Giuliani’s larger-than-life personal story. But conservative “values voters” could be different, as Giuliani’s own aides noted in a 140-page memo leaked last week by supporters of a rival candidate.
The campaign dossier suggested that Hanover could be one of several potentially “insurmountable” vulnerabilities that could cause him to drop out of the race. It was an embarrassing start to a campaign that is not yet officially under way.
Giuliani’s record in fighting crime and terrorism has placed him at the top of several polls for the 2008 Republican nomination, edging out Senator John McCain in popular support. But the party base may be turned off by his support for abortion, immigration, gun control and gay rights (although not gay marriage). It is their votes that he needs to secure the nomination.
“It would be one thing if Giuliani could say, ‘I’m a strong social conservative in my private life’, but he can’t even say that,” said Ramesh Ponnuru, a conservative commentator and author of The Party of Death, an attack on social liberalism. “It’s not just the fact of his multiple marriages, it is the way the Hanover marriage melted down. It was operatic.”
When Giuliani met Hanover on a blind date in the early 1980s, his first marriage to Regina, his second cousin, was already over. Hanover, who went on to appear in the television series Ally McBeal, was a glamorous soulmate who seemed to enjoy the spotlight as much as he did.
They had two children, Andrew, 21, and Caroline, 17, but in 1996 Hanover stopped calling herself by his last name and a year later Vanity Fair magazine said that he was having an “intimate relationship” with a senior member of his staff.
In 2000, without telling Hanover first, Giuliani announced at a press conference that he was separating from her. She retaliated by accusing him of being unfaithful with the employee, but he was already with Nathan.
Maggie Gallagher, a family values campaigner, was outraged by Giuliani’s “scummy” performance, accusing him of making Bill Clinton “look good as a husband and father”.
New Yorkers learnt during the divorce case that their cancer- afflicted mayor was temporarily impotent and Hanover demanded a huge settlement, including £760 a month to care for Goalie, the family’s golden retriever.
Felder struck back, accusing Hanover of being an “uncaring mother” who was “howling like a stuck pig”.
In the end Giuliani, who was beginning to earn big consultancy fees after September 11, agreed to a settlement of $6.8m to avoid the full horror of a court case.
Hanover has married Ed Oster, her university sweetheart, and written a book, My Boyfriend’s Back, about rekindling an old romance. Even if she stays mum, there is enough in the public domain to rattle conservatives. Yet however vicious the personal attacks on Giuliani, they are unlikely to dent his reputation for competence. He did, after all, handle the September 11 attacks while bunking with gay friends in the midst of an affair and a divorce battle.
Foreign policy, defense, the amount of taxes, spending, the role of the courts, educational policy, medical subsidies, tax structures, social security structures, entitlements, land use, trade issues, protectionism, tort lawyers, and tort law, and the environment, come to mind, off the top of my head, as issues that are very tangential from social issues, that divide and anger and annoy, as social issues, qua social issues.
Leni
I have ignored certain libertarian issues, such as drug policy, the Patriot Act, etc, that are also not really social issues, as commonly referred to. And then there are the globalist issues, and the the federal reserve issues, and fiat currency, for the nutters out there - also beyond the sane zone of social issue concerns.
Any source.
Just a reminder: Free Republic is a conservative site
Posted on 04/11/2006 by Jim Robinson
We fight for conservative principles, values and causes. We defend the Constitution. We defend our borders. We defend our God-given rights. We are opposed to the liberal/socialist/Marxist agenda for America. We do not willingly give up ground to the Marxists.
We fight on. We hold the majority. We continue working as hard as we possibly can to elect as many conservatives as we possibly can. We build a conservative majority that can overcome the Democrats and the RINOs.
We do not willingly give up any seats to Democrats. We add seats. Preferably, conservative seats. I would also like to remind everyone, that Free Republic does not condone racism and does not advocate violence. We exercise our first amendment rights to free speech and peaceable assembly. We do not condemn people because of their race, religion, ethnicity, skin color, etc. We do not advocate civil war, anarchy, or an overthrow of the government.
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I'll list a few issues (by no means and exhaustive list) that will be adversely affected by Marxist/Democrats in power:
The Supreme Court
The federal judiciary
The legislative agenda
The right to life Marriage between one man, one woman
The family
Education
Health care
Private property
Taxation Oil/energy The right to keep and bear arms
The right to freedom of religion
The right to self-governance
All of our God-given rights
The Constitution
The Republic
Liberty itself
Do not get so discouraged that we give it all up. It could take generations to get it back. If ever. "Securing the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" is our duty.
I was responding to a FReeper who replied, "so what?" when I said that Giuliani IS NOT a conservative.
Rudy is conservative on many issues.
Instead of always trying to whip up an anti-Rudy duststorm, why don't you see what Rudy is actually on the record stating like
* will appoint judges in the mold of Scalia and Roberts.
* is against gay marriage
* supports charter schools and free choice in education
* supports smaller government and lower taxes.
* totally supports freedom of religion, and is against public funding of anti-religion. ( Brooklyn Museum )
* totally supports private property rights.
For the rest, why don't you wait and see what Rudy actually believes in and what he says. Right now you are just repeating the same crap over and over without verifying it.
You honestly believe Rudy will repeal the 2nd Amendment or push for more gun control laws?
The 2nd Amendment survived the Clinton & Carter years, didn't it?
You are being myopic.
Well she was on Broadway, a play about a part of her lower anatomy that talks to itself IIRC.
I'm SO glad my vote cancels out yours!!!
And does anybody remember when Donna Hanover tried to make it on the Food Network show. She was nothing. She was starting Culinary School and I don't know what happened after that. She dissapeared from the Food Show.
I'm a Republican. I want to see a Republican win the Presidency in 2008. If a Republican who wins the primary isn't a conservative, who would you vote for instead?
I will vote for the GOP nominee whoever it is, but I want the nominee to be conservative.
So if its Guiliani, would you vote for him?
Did Reagan exclusively run on social issues & told people they were going to Hell for looking at Playboy though. He highlighted & included them as part of the greater good of conservatism. That's what Republicans need to do. People hate being preached to.
Rudy's statements in the past, his endorsements by liberals, whatever. 2008 is a whole new ballgame. The next election will be all about economic & foreign policy. So the pro-life movement and the busybodies worrying about other people's families should work in increments rather than demanding they get fed grapes by muscular men.
Rudy's personal life or his marriages are none of people's business. Learn from our hero Reagan and build a coalition rather than a couple of pet issues.
No to the first, and probably no to the second (but depending on what rights, privileges and benefits are attached).
I didn't agree with Rudy's immigration policy as Mayor of NYC. This is simply an issue that I will wait for Rudy to clarify when the primaries heat up. Obviously, I'm not a fan of illegal immigration and this issue will definetly play a role in my vote for the GOP nominee.
Yes, but my hope is that he won't be the nominee.
What fallacies?
How about you limit the size of government and take taxpayer dollars out of abortion, and the abortion industry will shrivel up over time.
How about you let states worry about gay marriages and stop cracking down on online poker players.
If you cut taxes and limit government, people will make the right choices themselves.
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