Posted on 04/11/2007 10:15:51 AM PDT by Spiff
Rudy Giuliani
Life Long Liberal
Edited by
George J. Marlin
Author of Squandered Opportunities: New York’s Pataki Years and The American Catholic Voter: Two Hundred Years of Political Impact
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction.......................................................................................................................... 3
Liberal Rudy Giuliani.......................................................................................................... 5
Liberal Republican Rudy Giuliani..................................................................................... 7
Abortion.............................................................................................................................. 11
Abortion-Partial Birth....................................................................................................... 15
Abortion – Taxpayer Funded........................................................................................... 16
Clinton, Bill and Giuliani................................................................................................... 17
Condom Distribution in Schools....................................................................................... 18
Conservative Party of New York State and Giuliani...................................................... 18
Crime and Giuliani............................................................................................................ 20
Culture War – Brooklyn Museum of Art and Giuliani.................................................. 20
Cuomo Endorsement by Giuliani..................................................................................... 21
Cuomo Endorsement – Giuliani Reasons for Rejecting Pataki..................................... 21
Cuomo Endorsement by Giuliani – Republican and Conservative Reactions............. 22
Education Standards in New York City.......................................................................... 23
Fiscal Management of New York City During Giuliani Mayoralty.............................. 24
Gay Bias Crime Law......................................................................................................... 26
Gay Domestic Partnership Rights.................................................................................... 26
Gay Games in New York City.......................................................................................... 27
Gay and Lesbian Exposition in New York City.............................................................. 28
Gay Pride Parade, New York City................................................................................... 28
Gay Pride Parade – Giuliani reason for marching with
Log Cabin Republican Club........................................................................................... 30
Gay Rights Bill, New York City....................................................................................... 30
Gay Rights Legislation, New York State......................................................................... 31
Gay Rights and Republican Party ................................................................................... 32
Gay Rights and Youth....................................................................................................... 32
Goldwater, Barry .............................................................................................................. 33
Gun Control....................................................................................................................... 33
Immigration........................................................................................................................ 35
Liberal Party of New York State and Rudy Giuliani..................................................... 36
Rent Control....................................................................................................................... 37
Ronald Reagan – Giuliani’s “Hero”?............................................................................... 37
School Vouchers................................................................................................................. 38
Tax Cuts............................................................................................................................. 39
Vietnam War – Draft and Rudy Giuliani........................................................................ 40
About the Editor................................................................................................................ 42
Books Cited........................................................................................................................ 42
Introduction
Rudy Giuliani has been barnstorming the nation, proclaiming himself a conservative and saying his hero is Ronald Reagan. Recent opinion polls suggest his campaign is striking a chord with the GOP’s rank and file, and New York’s neo-conservatives have taken the lead in promoting the former Mayor as the savior of the Republican Party, and heaven knows the GOP needs saving.
But those polls also indicate that most Republicans around the country don’t really know where Mr. Giuliani stands on key issues, and those who do know are glossing over some very striking philosophical flaws—at least from a truly conservative perspective. Rudy supports abortion, including partial-birth abortion and government funding of abortion, and he is in favor of gun control, gay rights, domestic partnerships, and bias-crime laws. And that’s just a short list.
As a conservative activist who has observed Giuliani for many years (and ran against him in the ’93 mayoral election), I can say categorically that he is not now and never has been a conservative. In my judgment, his record leaves no doubt that he’s a lifelong liberal.
From undergraduate days writing for his college newspaper, throughout his extensive legal career, and especially in his very visible political service—up to an including his actions after 9/11—Giuliani has held and promoted leftist views.
In college, he attacked Barry Goldwater as an “incompetent, confused and sometimes idiotic man,” and he urged Republicans to “find men who will adequately address themselves to the problems of discrimination, of poverty, of education, of public housing and the many more problems that Senator Goldwater and company throw aside in the name of small laissez-faire government.” That was a long time ago, of course, but his views haven’t really changed, and to advance his career Giuliani has had no problem concealing his liberalism.
Liberal icon Mario Cuomo put it this way: “[Giuliani’s] basically very pragmatic. And he’s progressive. He is not a Neanderthal, a primitive conservative. But look, he’s a clever human being. He can shave and draw fine distinctions when he needs to.”
Giuliani’s first wife, Regina, agreed. She told Giuliani biographer Wayne Barrett that when she and Rudy separated in 1980, “she . . . still considered him to be a liberal Democrat.” She also observed that “[Rudy] generally won’t do things unless he believes them . . . but he’s not a saint, and he will do things that serve his interests.”
Rudy first switched from Democrat to Independent and then to Republican, not because he embraced the tenets of conservatism, but in order to get U.S. Justice Department jobs.
“He only became a Republican after he began to get all these jobs from them,” Rudy’s mother, Helen Giuliani, told Barrett. “He’s definitely not a conservative Republican. He thinks he is, but he isn’t. He still feels very sorry for the poor.”
As a candidate for Mayor of New York, Giuliani distanced himself from Ronald Reagan and the GOP. The Times pointed out that he “noted frequently that he was supported by the liberal wing of the Republican Party and maintained that he never embraced Mr. Reagan’s broad conservative agenda.” And when conservatives attacked him during that ‘93 mayoral campaign, Giuliani said: “Their fear of me is that I’m going to be a beachhead for the establishment of a more progressive form of Republicanism.”
On another occasion he told a TV host, “I do not look to see what the catechism of conservatism says about how to solve a problem.”
And we mustn’t forget that when Giuliani endorsed Democrat Mario Cuomo for re-election to a fourth term as governor in 1994, he did so, he said, because Republican George Pataki had “a very right-wing voting record” and because Pataki proposed an “irresponsible” 25 percent state income tax cut.
Giuliani also seriously considered endorsing Bill Clinton in 1996. “Most of Clinton’s policies,” he said at the time, “are very similar to mine.”
Some Republicans and Conservatives are now claiming that Rudy has changed and really become more conservative, and they cite as an example his abandonment of his former vehement opposition to school vouchers. But when Rudy Crew, former New York City Public Schools Chancellor, asked Giuliani about this policy shift, the Mayor said: “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a political thing, a campaign thing. I’m not going to do anything. Don’t take it seriously.” This particular rightward shift was simply a ploy to enhance Giuliani’s 2000 U.S. Senate candidacy.
Other Republicans point to Rudy’s fiscal management of N.Y.C. as proof of his conservatism, and it’s true that during Giuliani’s first term when times were tough, he contained costs and made some tax cuts. But in his second term, when the economy was booming, Rudy became a big-spending liberal. City budget expenditures jumped 25 percent—twice the inflation rate—and Giuliani left his successor a projected operating deficit of $4.5 billion and New York’s citizens with the highest tax burden in any major municipality in America.
In Rudy Giuliani: Lifelong Liberal, I utilize Rudy’s own words, news reports and commentary from both the left and right to prove that contrary to what we’ve been hearing and reading, Rudy Giuliani is what he has always been—a liberal. It is my hope that after reviewing this material, conservatives will take stories of Giuliani’s Damascus Road-like conversion with a grain of salt.
George J. Marlin
March 14, 2007
Liberal Rudy Giuliani
As a kid attending school in Brooklyn, Giuliani was enchanted by John F. Kennedy’s campaign to become America’s first Catholic president, and he led the JFK-for-President committee at [Bishop Loughlin H.S.]. His devotion to the Kennedys continued in college, where he supported Bobby Kennedy’s campaign for the Senate and vilified the conservatives in the GOP. “The Republicans,” he scolded in his column, “must find men who will adequately address themselves to the problems of discrimination, of poverty, of education, of public housing and the many more problems that Senator Goldwater and company throw aside in the name of small laissez-faire government.
“Strong, large government is necessary,” Giuliani concluded, “to deal with industries that are national and international and with problems that cities and states have ignored for too long a time.”
Emperor of the City, p. 12
(Emphasis Added)
* * *
[Giuliani’s first wife] Regina recalled that when she split with Rudy in early 1980, she had still considered him to be liberal Democrat. “He generally won’t do things unless he believes them” said Regina, adding, “but he’s not a saint, and he will do things that serve his interests.”
Rudy!, p. 103
* * *
Rudy’s mother confirmed that her son’s registration switch was designed to snare a Reagan job. “He only became a Republican after he began to get all these jobs from them,” said Helen Giuliani in an unpublished 1988 interview. “He’s definitely not a conservative Republican. He thinks he is, but he isn’t. He still feels very sorry for the poor.”
Rudy!, p. 103
* * *
He was more liberal than people knew on social issues. On issues of the economy, on crime, I’m somewhat conservative. On social issues I would call both of us liberals. ….I asked him on our second date what his position was on abortion, and it was pro-choice and always has been pro-choice.
Donna Hanover Giuliani
(Rudy Giuliani’s second wife)
New York Newsday, July 19, 1993
* * *
During the 1960s, Rudy Giuliani was a self-described “Robert Kennedy Democrat.”
When he was a student at Manhattan College (1961-1965), he wrote an article for the campus newspaper supporting RFK over Republican Kenneth Keating in the 1964 Senate election. [Congressman] Peter King recalled him being sympathetic to the black rioters of Newark and Detroit during 1967.
During the liberal 1960s, Giuliani was definitely liberal.
But in 1975 Giuliani switched his party registration from Democrat to Independent, just before he got a job in Gerald Ford’s Justice Department, according to his mentor, Harold “Ace” Tyler. Tyler is the former federal judge who hired Giuliani as his deputy, to help him run the criminal division of the Justice Department in 1975.
On December 8, 1980, Giuliani changed his party registration again. This time he shifted it from Independent to Republican. This was just one month after Ronald Reagan’s election and just as Rudy was applying for a job to be the assistant Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He got the job under William French Smith. Three years later, President Reagan appointed Giuliani to be the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The Full Rudy, pp. 121-122
* * *
The young Rudy had little sympathy for the extremists who took over the Republican Party in 1964 with the nomination of Barry Goldwater, whom he considered a right-wing “patsy,” [and] a sycophant of the John Birch Society…. After the election, [Giuliani] the Quadrangle analyst continued to roast “the Goldwater people… [who] succeeded in inflicting a tremendous defeat on the Republican Party. Now these same people who have come very close to destroying the party founded in 1854 seem to think they have some right to hold onto the leadership of the Republican Party.”…
…In fact, he personally doubted that the American electorate would ever accept the “so-called conservative philosophy of government,” with all its “erratic” and potentially “dangerous” prescriptions….
He gave astringent advice to the vanquished Republicans, whom he felt must “adequately address themselves to the problems of discrimination, of poverty, of education, of public housing and the many more problems that Senator Goldwater and Company throw aside in the name of small laissez-faire government….
Strong, large government is necessary to deal with industries that are national and international and with problems that cities and states have ignored.”
New York Observer, July 12, 1997
(Emphasis Added)
* * *
Yet the best evidence is that, at least intellectually, Giuliani was a liberal about race until he ran for mayor. He once told me he had a poster of Martin Luther King, Jr. in his room while he was in high school. He told me how he stood on line for hours to view Robert Kennedy’s casket, after serving as a volunteer in Kennedy’s campaign for president in 1968. Giuliani told me that he voted for George McGovern for president in 1972, rather than Richard Nixon.
The Full Rudy, P. 65
* * *
I find that the people you would describe as a moderate Republican or a moderate Democrat, roughly, I agree with nine out of 10 times.
Rudy Giuliani
September 1997 statement
Quoted in New York Daily News, June 3, 1999
* * *
“He’s basically very pragmatic,” Mario Cuomo says. “And he’s progressive. He is not a Neanderthal, a primitive conservative. But look, he’s a clever human being. He can shave and draw fine distinctions when he needs to.”
New York, November 1, 2004
* * *
Liberal Republican Rudy Giuliani
What kind of Republican? Is [Giuliani], for instance, a Reagan Republican? [Giuliani] pauses before answering: “I’m a Republican.”
Village Voice, January 24, 1989
* * *
Mr. Rockefeller represented “a tradition in the Republican Party I’ve worked hard to re-kindle – the Rockefeller, Javits, Lefkowitz tradition.”
Rudy Giuliani
New York Times, July 9, 1992
* * *
Mayoral hopeful Rudolph Giuliani said yesterday that if he wins the GOP primary, as expected, he will rename his Republican line on the November ballot after the Independent Fusion Party founded by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
The state’s leading elected Republican, Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, denounced the decision as “ambition and arrogance at its worst. Can you imagine that the party that was good enough for Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and George Bush isn’t good enough for Rudolph Giuliani?”
New York Daily News, July 12, 1989
* * *
Mr. Giuliani solicited the Liberal Party nomination, he actually says, partly because many of his friends and relatives would have been too embarrassed to vote for a Republican. Mr. Giuliani campaigned for Bobby Kennedy and says he voted for George McGovern. His campaign staff includes at least one former Mike Dukakis aide. He told a TV interviewer, “I do not look to see what the catechism of conservatism says about how to solve a problem.”
Editorial
The Wall Street Journal, August 1, 1989
(Emphasis Added)
* * *
What’s the difference between one liberal, Dinkins, and another liberal, Giuliani?” said George L. Clark, the former Republican state chairman and Lauder campaign chairman. Senator D’Amato predicted before the primary that, if elected, Mr. Giuliani would become a Democrat like the last Republican who won City Hall, John V. Lindsay.
New York Times, September 24, 1989
* * *
“My political party put together with the liberal party can produce the kind of change New York City saw with Fiorella LaGuardia and with John Lindsay.”
“Fiorella LaGuardia was the kind of person who could rise above ideology and get this City moving towards solutions.”
“Rise above Party, rise above these labels.”
News Forum, N.B.C., Sunday, May 30, 1993
* * *
The Giuliani campaign should follow the example of John Lindsay’s first campaign for mayor. Like Lindsay’s campaign – Fiorello LaGuardia’s for that matter, too – Giuliani is “fusion” candidate for mayor, not the Republican candidate for mayor.
Giuliani Campaign-Sponsored
“Vulnerability Study” April 8, 1993
* * *
The Giuliani campaign should emphasize its candidate’s independence from traditional national Republican policies. Especially useful in this strategy is Giuliani’s role in overturning a Reagan administration attempt to throw disabled people off the Social Security rolls, his prosecution of Republican elected officials – especially his authorization for calling his boss, Attorney General Edwin Meese III, a sleaze, and his un-Republican views on many social issues of concern to New Yorkers, like abortion, gun control and bias protection for homosexuals.
Giuliani Campaign-Sponsored
“Vulnerability Study” April 8, 1993
* * *
Giuliani, who favors Massachusetts Gov. William Weld – like Giuliani, a former prosecutor – as the 1996 GOP presidential nominee, countered that conservatives fear losing control of the Republican Party after Democrat Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory.
“Their fear of me is that I’m going to be a beachhead for the establishment of a more progressive form of Republicanism,” said Giuliani.
New York Newsday, October 8, 1993
(Emphasis Added)
* * *
Rudy even expressed his pleasure when he wasn’t invited to the Republican National Convention in San Diego. “If I take three or four days off from city business, I want to do it for a substantive purpose. It didn’t seem to me any substantive purpose could be served by going to the Republican convention.”
Rudy!, Page 459
* * *
In New York City, a Republican candidate must give Democrats a chance to vote for him on a non-Republican ticket. But why did not Giuliani merely run as an independent, instead of antagonizing the right with his Liberal embrace? “Tradition,” he told us – specifically, the fusion tradition of LaGuardia and Lindsay.
Those two modern Republican mayors of New York ultimately left the GOP. Is that the road Rudy Giuliani will travel? “This is a different time,” he responded, adding that “you don’t have to change yourself into a Democrat.” Actually, he was a Democrat most of his life and, in 1972, “reluctantly” voted for McGovern. In 1973, he changed his party registration to independent and began to consider himself a Republican when working in the Nixon administration Justice Department, but did not register as one until 1980.
Robert Novak and Rowland Evans
New York Post, May 1, 1989
* * *
[Giuliani’s] managerial, rather than ideological, role for Republicans, derived from Nelson Rockefeller, rather than Ronald Reagan, suggests no sweeping policy change in governing the city. “In order to meet the housing needs of the lower middle class in the city, you have to have rent control,” Giuliani told us. He opposes increases in city taxes, “but I absolutely will not take the oath” and says President Bush erred in his 1988 anti-tax pledge.
Robert Novak and Rowland Evans
New York Post, May 1, 1989
* * *
Dinkins is running in the spirit of 1990s liberalism, as a victim. “They” – Republicans in Washington – caused his problems. He deserves to be the first big city black mayor to fail to be reelected. Which is not to say that Giuliani, the nominee of the Republican and Liberal parties, deserves to win.
Neither man is for meaningful school choice (vouchers redeemable at public and private schools) or for repealing rent controls on even luxury apartments (“too emotional” an issue says Giuliani). Neither man is for the sort of serious privatization entertained by mayors in Philadelphia, Indianapolis and elsewhere. Neither man had sympathy for the parents who rebelled when the school system began inflicting “Heather Has Two Mommies” and similar sexual indoctrination on grade-schoolers.
George F. Will, Columnist
Staten Island Advance, October 21, 1993
* * *
George Pataki and Rudy Giuliani are coming increasingly to resemble Rockefeller and Lindsay. They may pretend otherwise, but don’t believe it.
The governor just presided over the single largest expansion of entitlements in New York since Rockefeller played midwife to Medicaid in 1966.
And the mayor makes no bones about his standing as a “moderate” New York Republican. He’s not exactly donning Lindsay’s mantle; Rudy remains tough on crime, and his heart’s in the right place on welfare reform. But he continues to hold New York’s social conservatives at arm’s length, and in a big-profile manner at that.
Robert McManus, Editorial Page Editor
New York Post, January 27, 2000
* * *
“Giuliani revives the old fight between the Rockefeller branch and the grass-rooters,” said Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative activist, emphasizing the Republican platform’s opposition to legalized abortion. “I don’t think he could succeed. I don’t see how he could modify his position enough.”
New York Times, September 14, 2004
* * *
Abortion
“I’d give my daughter the money for it [an abortion].”
“I never called for the overturning of Roe vs. Wade.”
Rudy Giuliani
New York Newsday, September 1, 1989
* * *
“See, I don’t equate abortion with murdering a child, which I guess puts me in conflict with the teaching of the Catholic church. Catholics in public office often make the mistake, a subtle but important one, of saying they agree with the teaching of the church, but because I’m in public office, I have to put conscience aside and enforce the law. They haven’t thought out the implication of what they’re saying. If you agree with the church, there’s no difference between murdering a one-year-old and eliminating a fetus – it’s the same act. There is a moral consequence to the elimination of a fetus, but it’s not the same thing as murder.”
Rudy Giuliani
New York, May 25, 1987
(Emphasis Added)
* * *
The simple fact is that whether I am the Mayor or [Democrat David Dinkins] the Mayor, it’s going to be the same for women who want an abortion. I’m going to fund abortion, to make certain that poor women are not deprived of an abortion, and I’m going to oppose making abortion illegal. That’s a non-issue.
Rudy Giuliani
New York Times, September 20, 1989
* * *
“I made a terrible mistake on abortion last time,” Giuliani allowed. “I should have said I was pro-choice and stopped. But I spent so much time explaining the ideology and theology of how I reached my position, nobody understood what I was saying.”
New York Post, March 3, 1992
* * *
Leaflets distributed by the Giuliani campaign …. said that he opposes restrictions to Federal Medicaid financing for abortions and opposes the Hyde Amendment, which is intended to deny support for that financing.
New York Times, June 18, 1993
* * *
At a breakfast meeting in Atlanta with Republicans who favor abortion rights, Mr. Giuliani said a political party that favored laissez-faire government in fiscal affairs should also allow people to make choices in their personal lives.
“For a party which has such a strong belief in economic choice – which really comes out of the notion of freedom – it would seem to me that it would be entirely consistent that that choice would also extend to the most personal and difficult decisions that people have to make.”
New York Times, October 24, 1994
* * *
[Giuliani] also supports New York’s abortion law “as it stands,” which allows pregnancies to be legally terminated within 24 weeks of gestation and only afterward with a physician’s consent when the mother’s life is in danger.
“I feel there are adequate protections and there shouldn’t be changes,” Giuliani said last week during a Times Union interview, adding that he would not support a ban on third-trimester abortions. “New York shouldn’t be ashamed of the law…. That law, I think, is a fair one and works to create the necessary scope of freedom and prohibition.”
Albany Times Union, November 17, 1999
* * *
My position on abortion is precisely the same today as it was yesterday. I haven’t changed overnight…. New York should not be ashamed of the [state] law [legalizing abortion].
Rudy Giuliani
Statement made to Albany Times-Union,
November 1999.
Requoted in New York Times, Nov. 26, 1999
* * *
Right now, the Mayor is pro-choice. That’s his position and that’s his position, and it hasn’t changed and the Mayor believes what he believes in.
Statement by Giuliani Senate campaign
Manager Bruce Teitelbaum, Meet the Press,
NBC, November 28, 1999, New York Times,
November 29, 1999
* * *
My position on abortion is exactly the same as it has always been, I don’t see my position on that changing.
Rudy Giuliani
New York Times, November 30, 1999
* * *
“As a Republican, it made more sense for me to be pro-choice. I think Republicans more often want people to make choices about their own lives,” and he advocated government intrusion “only to the extent necessary.”
The former mayor told the student audience: “I think some people will come to the moral choice about abortion that it is sinful or wrong. But ultimately I think it is the woman’s right and the choice she has to make.”
And: “Seven out of 10 Americans are pro-life and pro-choice. They would prefer that somebody didn’t have an abortion. They might even prefer that somebody didn’t have an abortion. They might even prefer themselves not to have an abortion. They say as far as government is concerned, it shouldn’t interfere with abortion or shouldn’t criminalize it.”
In other words, not as originally described. Mr. Giuliani’s remarks were basically what he’s been saying for years.
New York Times, November 14, 2005
(Emphasis Added)
* * *
After clarifying his clarifications, Rudy Giuliani has finally decided he’s in favor of legal abortion, a decision that will be viewed as either sensible, sad, cynical or opportunistic…. Is no one concerned about parental consent, allowing 13-year-old girls to have abortions without even telling their parents? Is no one concerned about millions of taxpayer dollars being used to fund abortions?
Is no voter concerned that the American birth rate has fallen, that we are not even reproducing ourselves because 25 million Americans have been destroyed in the womb since 1973, when abortion was made legal?
For these voters, Rudy Giuliani once seemed to offer an alternative to the full-speed-ahead Democrats, but now that hope has vanished. Rudy has joined the crowd, so there’s no debate on the greatest issue of the day, and that makes all of us losers. It may yet make Rudy a loser, too. Why change for more of the same?
Ray Kerrison, Columnist
New York Post, August 9, 1987
* * *
He is a bright and talented manager. But he’s also a skillful compromiser and some principles simply cannot be negotiated away….he parts company on an issue about which there can be no compromise, no negotiation. Rudolph Giuliani not only supports the right to choose an abortion, he also supports the right to perform partial birth abortion. He would defend the right to slaughter a fully-formed and healthy nine month old pre-born on the day it’s being born.
“Rudy’s Smoke Screen,” Msgr. James Lisante
The Long Island Catholic, November 24, 1999
* * *
Abortion-Partial Birth
Mr. Giuliani has said that New York State law should not be changed to outlaw the [Partial-Birth Abortion] procedure.
New York Times, January 7, 1998
* * *
In 1997, Giuliani’s position was clear as he sought reelection in a city where abortion rights enjoy strong support.
At the time, his campaign chief filled out a National Abortion Rights Action League questionnaire saying Giuliani would “oppose legislation that would make criminals of doctors who perform intact D and X abortions.”
Intact dilation and extraction is the technical term for late-term abortion, which opponents call partial-birth abortion.
Kelli Conlin, executive director of NARAL’s New York affiliate, said she she (sic) “can’t imagine he would change his position. He would look pretty awkward if he did.”…
In the 1997 questionnaire, a Giuliani aide also said the mayor backed Medicaid funding for abortion and opposed any legislation to require a minor to obtain permission from a parent to obtain an abortion.
New York Daily News, August 18, 1999
* * *
An aide to Mayor Giuliani yesterday said the mayor still opposes certain restrictions on late-term abortions – a controversial position that could prevent him from winning the Conservative Party endorsement for Senate.
“The mayor is not rethinking his position,” said spokeswoman Sunny Mindel.
New York Daily News, August 18, 1999
* * *
Likely Senate candidate Mayor Giuliani says he’s sticking to his guns on opposing restrictions on so-called partial-birth abortions – a political hot potato that could cost him the Conservative Party endorsement.
“I’ve only had to deal with [the issue] as the mayor of New York and I supported it, and I don’t see any reason to change that position,” Giuliani tells “Evans & Novak” on CNN, scheduled to air today.
New York Post, October 9, 1999
* * *
For now, the mayor’s position appears firm: Earlier this month, Mr. Giuliani told The Albany Times Union that he would not support a ban on late-term abortions and that he supports the state’s abortion law. “New York shouldn’t be ashamed of the law,” Mr. Giuliani said. “That law, I think, is a fair one and works to create the necessary scope of freedom and prohibition.”
At a City Hall news conference this week, Mr. Giuliani brushed off a question about late-term abortion, saying that “my position on abortion is precisely the same today as it was yesterday. I haven’t changed over-night.”
New York Times, November 26, 1999
* * *
Giuliani, who backs abortion rights, has opposed a ban on the controversial late-term abortion procedure.
“I don’t see my position changing,” he said in Texas.
New York Post, November 30, 1999
* * *
Abortion – Taxpayer Funded
[Giuliani] would continue the city’s discretionary spending of $10 million a year on abortions not otherwise eligible for state or Federal reimbursement.
New York Times, March 9, 1989
* * *
As mayor, Rudy Giuliani will uphold a woman’s right of choice to have an abortion. Giuliani will fund all city programs which provide abortions to insure that no woman is deprived of her right due to an inability to pay. He will oppose reductions in state funding. He will oppose making abortion illegal.
New York Times, August 4, 1989
(Emphasis Added)
* * *
Clinton, Bill and Giuliani
Most of Clinton’s policies are very similar to most of mine.
1996 statement attributed to Giuliani by
Columnist Jack Newfield. Quoted in column
by Newfield in New York Daily News, June 8, 1999.
* * *
Shortly before his last-minute endorsement of Bob Dole in the 1996 presidential election, [Giuliani] told the Post’s Jack Newfield that “most of Clinton’s policies are very similar to most of mine.” The Daily News quoted [Giuliani] as saying that March: “Whether you talk about President Clinton, Senator Dole…. The country would be in very good hands in the hands of any of that group.”
Revealing at one point that he was “open” to the idea of endorsing Clinton, he explained: “When I ran for mayor both times, ’89 and ’93, I promised people that I would be, if not bipartisan, at least open to the possibility of supporting Democrats.”
Rudy!, Page 459
* * *
“Democrats and Republicans working together – Kind of interesting it happens on the same weekend that President Clinton has done that. He’s kind of reached out to try to create a little more bipartisan government in Washington. I’ve reached out and created bipartisan government in New York City.
New York One, Sunday, May 30, 1993
* * *
In an interview on the shuttle to Washington, Mr. Giuliani compared his warming relations with Mr. Clinton to Mayor Edward I. Koch’s efforts to find common ground with President Reagan in the early 1980’s.
Speaking of Mr. Clinton, Mr. Giuliani said: “We’ve gotten to know each other better. You get to work with people in the White House and get to know them, and that can only help the city.”
But some New York Republicans in Congress compared Mr. Giuliani to John Lindsay, the last Republican-Liberal mayor, who crossed party lines and became a Democrat. They said he miscalculated in aiding a Democratic President as Congressional elections approached, a move that would backfire especially if Republicans pick up 25 or more New House seats in November.
“If he feels so strongly about the party, he shouldn’t go on Clinton’s road show,” [Congressman Peter] King of Long Island said. Reminding reporters Mr. Giuliani had once been a liberal Democrat, the Long Island Republican added, “I think he’s reverting to his old days.”
New York Times, August 18, 1994
(Emphasis Added)
* * *
Condom Distribution in Schools
Bishop Thomas V. Daily, head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, has criticized Mayor-elect Rudolph W. Giuliani for supporting the distribution of condoms in the public schools.
In a statement issued Friday afternoon, Bishop Daily, the spiritual leader of 1.6 million Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens, said he was “disappointed and dismayed that our Mayor-elect, Rudy Giuliani, has indicated that he supports this dangerously irresponsible policy.”
…. In Puerto Rico, where he has been vacationing, Mr. Giuliani said yesterday: “My position has always been that condoms should be available. I support that program. But I believe that parents should have the opportunity to opt out if they choose.”
Mr. Giuliani went on to say that “the realities of today’s society” are that condoms have to be available in public schools. His spokesman, Richard Bryers, explained that that reality was “the treat of AIDS.”
Bishop Daily called condom distribution “just another quick-fix solution.”
New York Times, November 14, 1993
* * *
Conservative Party of New York State and Giuliani
Herb London, a professor who won 21% of the vote as a Conservative Party candidate for governor in 1990 and is running for the GOP gubernatorial nomination next year, hosted a reception for Mr. Giuliani at his home. “He tried to appeal to conservatives, but wasn’t at all convincing,” Mr. London recalls. “New York City’s still filled with Rockefeller Republicans, and Giuliani is the heir to that tradition.”
The Wall Street Journal, October 26, 1993
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In very simple terms, I know Rudy Giuliani. He’s not a conservative.
This is a man who has worked to elect Bobby Kennedy, George McGovern and Mario Cuomo…
I cannot deny that Rudy Giuliani has done a good job as Mayor of New York City. But, Rudy Giuliani supports partial-birth abortion. He’s said it last Sunday on Meet the Press and he repeated it in the New York Times, Daily News and New York Post. Giuliani’s also marched in New York’s Gay Pride parades. By these actions, he’s supported the radical left’s anti-family message….
He believes that the Second Amendment – the right to keep and bear arms, doesn’t matter anymore. It seems that he believes that he knows more than Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the rest of our founding fathers.
He has used his bully pulpit to advocate higher taxes for hard-working New Yorkers, who commute to New York City every day.
Statement by Mike Long
Chairman, New York Conservative Party
February 10, 2000
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At an Albany press conference, Conservative Party chief Mike Long blasted the mayor for his stand on issues from partial-birth abortion to gay rights.
“One reason he’s not seeking our endorsement is that maybe he’s not qualified to get it,” Long said later. “He’s wrong on too many issues and he feels uncomfortable trying to get our endorsement.”
New York Post, February 8, 2000
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ALBANY – In his harshest criticism of Rudolph Giuliani to date, the leader of the state Conservative Party said Monday the New York City mayor fails on almost every issue conservatives hold dear and he should not run for U.S. Senate.
“I think I would rather that he didn’t run,” Michael Long said during his party’s political action conference in Albany.
Associated Press, February 8, 2000
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….“But since Giuliani refuses to make any pro-life concessions, even including a refusal to deplore partial-birth abortion, I have urged the Conservative Party not to nominate him and appear to wink at this heresy….
William F. Buckley Jr.
Washington Post, March 31, 2000
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Crime and Giuliani
Giuliani has done a magnificent job in reducing crime. But his character flaws make it impossible for him to give credit to former police commissioner Bill Bratton, who put together the police team responsible for the initial successes, and to David Dinkins, whose legislation funded an additional 8,000 cops for the city.
Edward Koch
New York Post, July 18, 1997
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Culture War – Brooklyn Museum of Art and Giuliani
That was a double con game: They had already tried this in Baltimore; Arnold Lehman [director of the Brooklyn Museum], the guy who brought the show, figured out in Baltimore that if you outraged Catholics, you would bring liberals to your side and make a reputation for yourself. He sees it in London and it’s a sensation in the full sense. The full title is “The Sensation Show” and it’s owned by [Charles] Saatchi. The irony here of course is that this is Margaret Thatcher’s PR adviser. Saatchi has these commercial arrangements with auction houses, which are much less than ethical. He comes to New York with this show and he can’t get support for it – everyone sees that this is an ethically compromised show, in a variety of ways, and he can’t get any major sponsors. He goes to Trojan condoms; even they don’t want to be part of it. So the idea is to hype the show, to get it sold, to help the Brooklyn Museum. Now some of the pieces of art that caused problems in England weren’t even brought here – the handprints of a woman who had mutilated and murdered five children. It used to be that art created controversy; now controversy gives something the aura of art, whether it has any artistic value or not, so it was a double con. Giuliani’s con was as follows: he didn’t want to cave in to the Conservative Party on abortion, so he was looking for an issue. Now I can’t prove this – I found no smoking gun, no memo – but I’m talking to people and watching it closely at the time. He was looking for a way to appeal to conservative Catholics without reversing his position and this was perfect. Lehman was a fraud; Lehman was corrupt; and he went after him.
Fred Siegel
Giuliani: Flawed or Flawless?, p. 245
(Bold Print Added)
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Cuomo Endorsement by Giuliani
“From my point of view as the mayor of New York City, the question that I have to ask is, ‘Who has the best chance in the next four years of successfully fighting for our interest? Who understands them, and who will make the best case for it?’ Our future, our destiny is not a matter of chance. It’s a matter of choice. My choice is Mario Cuomo.”
Rudy Giuliani
New York Times, October 25, 1994
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It’s Mario Cuomo who offers us the best opportunity for change, for a different reason, because of what he’s been through and because of his vast intelligence, his unquestioned integrity and his honesty. I believe he can apply those talents to the solutions for our problems and even see his way to different solutions. In any event, the ideas expressed by Mario Cuomo will be his own. He’s a leader.
Rudy Giuliani
New York Times, October 25, 1994
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Giuliani pressured GOP candidates and county leaders to reject Pataki; his surrogates and campaign operatives told Republican leaders that if they helped Pataki, their districts would suffer; a Republican campaign contributor says Giuliani’s people told him that if he gave to Pataki, he’d be “locked out of City Hall.”
New York, November 21, 1994
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Cuomo Endorsement – Giuliani Reasons for Rejecting Pataki
[Pataki has] a very right-wing voting record.
Comment during 1994 gubernatorial campaign
Requoted in New York Times, February 5, 1995
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Giuliani also called Pataki’s proposal for a 25 percent tax cut “irresponsible….”
Albany Times Union, October 25, 1994
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Cuomo Endorsement by Giuliani – Republican and
Conservative Reactions
“Once again, Rudolph Giuliani has demonstrated that liberalism is the foundation of his political philosophy. While Giuliani sold a bill of goods to trusting Republicans and Reagan Democrats that he had abandoned his roots as a McGovern Democrat, in his endorsement of Mario Cuomo, Mr. Liberal himself, he has shown his true colors. Giuliani’s argument that Cuomo will be better for the city has a hollow ring to it. Perhaps Rudy wants a governor who will sign over a blank check to constantly bail out the city from its fiscal problems. Giuliani knows, as do all New Yorkers, that Cuomo’s liberal policies have been an economic disaster for our city and state.”
“But Rudy doesn’t care. He has proven he will do anything to stop the election of a conservative Republican – but he won’t succeed.”
Michael Long, Chairman
N.Y.S. Conservative Party Press Statement,
October 25, 1994
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“[Quite] frankly, you have to understand the fact that Rudy Giuliani was a McGovern Democrat, he was endorsed by the Liberal Party when he ran for Mayor. In his heart, he’s a Democrat. He’s paraded all over this country with Bill Clinton and, in fact, he’s very comfortable with Mario Cuomo. But what Rudy Giuliani wants is to be bailed out in the city, in the mess he’s in, and everybody understands very clearly in politics that they struck a deal, that Mario’s going to continue to be the big spender, save Rudy the options of raising taxes by pouring money statewide into the City of New York and bailing it out. Quite frankly, I predict that he will join the Democratic Party.”
Interview with Michael Long, Chairman
N.Y.S. Conservative Party,
CNN Crossfire, October 25, 1994
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“Judas Giuliani”
Guy Molinari
Republican-Conservative Staten Island
Boro-President
1993 Giuliani for Mayor Campaign Chairman
* * *
“I would be disappointed in that a lot of Republicans helped Rudy when he ran for mayor. For him to turn around and support Cuomo, who is anathema to everything that we want for New York and America, would be a disappointment. I think there are going to be a lot of Republicans who are going to be disappointed in Rudy.”
U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, Republican of Texas
New York Times, October 25, 1994
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Rush Limbaugh used a large part of his ra