Posted on 05/22/2007 11:14:00 PM PDT by jedward
Who is you people? The folks mentioned in the article?
What is wrong with any group or individual in the USA supporting or opposing anyone in a primary election?
That thing is hilarious! Thanks for the laugh :)
Apparantly, they don’t like answering questions...
That was the reporters choice of words. Yes, pretty silly indeed. I dispise and loathe his policies. I don’t know him well enough to hate him, thank goodness :)
He pro gay and pro abortion. Why shouldn’t Catholics appose him?
Even as Rudy Giuliani emerges from his campaign’s first real rough patch, a number of conservative Catholic organizations are in the process of rolling out potentially broad-reaching “viral” initiatives with the common aim of denying him the Republican nomination.
A conservative Catholic P.A.C based in a key swing state is planning an anti-Giuliani “multimedia effort” for a June debut. A national network of politically savvy Catholic activists is creating a heavy-hitting Web site—patterned after the controversial Catholics Against Kerry effort in 2004—scheduled to appear around the same time. And earlier this month, a disabled vet working out of his home in Blytheville, Ark., launched an invitation-only “Stop Rudy” social-networking site, where Giuliani-haters from across the nation have begun to meet and coordinate real-world planning from behind the protection of a members-only log-in.
“We’re not going to hide,” said Joseph Cella, executive director of the conservative Catholic advocacy group Fidelis. “We just want to influence the conversation.”
The emergence of the groups at this point in the campaign seems to have been motivated in equal parts by Mr. Giuliani’s worst moment as a Presidential candidate and his best. His painfully equivocal answer to a question about Roe v. Wade at a May 3 Republican debate angered them. His subsequent dramatic recovery at the next debate on May 15—at which the former Mayor turned in a winningly aggressive performance on the subject of Sept. 11—scared them into action.
Fidelis America, the political-action committee of Fidelis, is arguably the best-established of the anti-Rudy organizations, and it’s certainly the most open about its overall strategy. A Michigan-based Catholic organization cleverly designed to navigate the tangle of federal campaign-spending restrictions, the group’s various arms have been registered as political-action committees, independent-expenditure committees and nonprofits.
The organization, whose executive director previously headed the Ave Maria List, a nonprofit political entity founded by Domino’s Pizza magnate Thomas Monaghan, is perhaps best known for alleging bias when CNN refused to run one of their issue ads featuring Mother Teresa, but later ran a spot by the pro-choice group NARAL. Fidelis promptly launched an e-mail campaign that crashed the network’s servers within hours.
Fidelis also claims credit for spearheading the development of WithdrawMiers.org, a site that registered more than two million hits during the ideologically moderate former White House counsel’s failed bid for a Supreme Court slot.
Mr. Cella says that the organization will try to provide a comprehensive, Web-based “clearinghouse” of issue-based opposition research, and that it will also engage in the distribution of more traditional negative literature, as when the group recruited a handful of volunteers to network and pass out its anti-Rudy materials at the South Carolina debate earlier this month.
“More is afoot—not just from us, but others,” said Mr. Cella, who has also served as an editor at the popular conservative Web site Redstate.com. “It will be edgy. Creative. Hard-hitting.”
A separate effort from another group of Catholic activists—to operate under the admirably straightforward title of Catholics Against Rudy—will also take aim at Mr. Giuliani’s record on social issues. It’s the brainchild of Georgia lawyer Steve Dillard, best known as the formerly anonymous voice of Southern Appeal, a conservative Catholic legal blog that drew a wide-ranging, fiercely loyal audience until Mr. Dillard outed himself and subsequently retired the site five months ago.
Mr. Dillard, along with other bloggers, commentators and activists who are planning to participate in the effort, are modeling their project on the headline-grabbing Catholics Against Kerry site that targeted the Democratic nominee three years ago. (Organizers say that none of the individuals involved in that operation are principals in the new effort.)
“It’s not a vast right-wing conspiracy,” said Mr. Dillard, “but if you’re active on these issues, you build up networks of people who share your concerns, who are very involved, and who have very significant followings. These aren’t just ‘likely voters’—these are very serious, die-hard activists. And they all have readers and supporters.”
Visitors to the new site, he said, will find themselves at a one-stop shop of anti-Rudy messaging, material and merchandise, including anti-Rudy bumper stickers, T-shirts and other assorted items. (They will be sold at cost to avoid any kind of potential profit—and the F.E.C. scrutiny that would undoubtedly bring.)
It’s a tightrope situation for the Giuliani campaign. No matter how hard-hitting the Web sites prove to be, their target readership will be a critical element of the Republican base. John Kerry’s general-election campaign in 2004 demonstrated the dangers of ignoring such attacks. But a sharp response would likely elevate their profile, and might risk alienating a broader number of socially conservative primary voters.
And there’s no road map for Mr. Giuliani. Experts interviewed for this story said they couldn’t recall a Catholic candidate who’d ever faced such a dilemma in a primary situation before.
The Giuliani campaign, for now, is treading carefully.
“Mayor Giuliani has always been straightforward about where he stands on the issue,” Giuliani spokeswoman Maria Comella told The Observer. “The Mayor is going to speak to the issues like he always does. He will continue to be straightforward about where he stands.”
The publicity goals for the various campaigns are relatively modest. They are not aiming for massive national followings, huge fund-raising hauls or major media exposure. Their overriding objective is to plant the seeds of doubt in the minds of conservative Catholic voters, particularly Reagan Democrats in key swing states like Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania—precisely the kind of voters who would be most expected to identify with, and be drawn to, Mr. Giuliani’s working-class Catholic roots. They say they are looking to reach 2 to 3 percent of the electorate—to peel off just enough voters to doom a Giuliani candidacy.
And they will be hard to track. The organizers behind several of these “Stop Rudy” groups, including more than one anonymous effort, say they’re not planning to register as P.A.C.’s or 527’s, or to file reports of any kind with the F.E.C. The Internet provides a haven for these activists, particularly those seeking to preserve their anonymity; they are careful in their description of the infrastructure they are developing.
As long as they remain in isolated groups of “friends and acquaintances” volunteering their time and expertise—as long as they do not openly fund-raise, or create an official hierarchy or public leadership structure—they will likely be able to avoid federal oversight. The most reclusive of them hide behind proxy administrators and refuse interviews entirely.
“We don’t have a precedent, but these efforts could theoretically make a big difference in the primaries, simply because there may still be several candidates in the mix. You don’t have to influence a lot of people to change the result,” said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life. “And if there were a close general election, this kind of activism can really matter—particularly in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.”
http://www.observer.com/2007/anti-rudy-catholics-plan-their-assault
Copyright © 2007 The New York Observer. All rights reserved.
LOL. You probably think you are being smart with your “if you’re not for Rudy you’re for Hillary comment”. Too bad it has been said 1,000 times here.
Why can’t you just be honest and say “I am a liberal, and therefore support the most liberal Republican?”
Keep it straight.
we catholics are exercising our right to vote - or not to vote for whoever the heck we want to.
Just because you don’t like what we do doesn’t mean we are part of some Clinton conspiracy.
Heck...I don’t like your view either but I’m not going to twist it into some conspiracy where covert liberals like yourself are trying to ruin the republican party from within.
cherry has a point - time and time again the voices on this board told us during the last election we needed to plug our nose and vote repub despite the centrism lest we lose seats
IMO this is no different - we are handing this to the dems...and the sycophants on this board are helping
You people need to stop spreading this lie to the American people. The truth is that if Guiliani is nominated - WE WILL LOSE. It’s you Rudybots that are trying to make our side lose. Running a liberal in the conservative party is a recipe for disaster.
You are spreading lies & you need to be called down on it.
Conservatives DON’T vote for liberals.
So, nearly eight months before a single vote is cast, you are accusing CONSERVATIVES of some form of deceit because we won't vote for a liberal?
will we find out later that you are in contact with the Clinton machine as well?
You mean like Rudy, the guy who ran THREE TIMES on the Liberal Party ticket in NYC?
this country is still suffering from the effects of Clinton and all you can do is see to it that a viable Pub canidate gets thrashed early and often so little Miss Witch can ride her broomstick in and "save" the country
CONSERVATIVES have yet to be shown any substantial difference between Rudy and Hillary (aside from the fact that he appears more comfortable in a dress).
An assault...truly blessed of them...
nose holding is for the general election. we actually get to vote for our candidate of choice in the primary.
"Viable". Interesting 'choice' of words regrading Rooty.
Lets just say we're exercising our constitutional 'pro choice' options and are attempting to 'abort' his candidacy.
And since Rooty is so OPENLY 'pro choice' I'm sure he'd have no problem with this. 
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