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GOP Insiders See Giuliani's Lead as Fragile March 13, 2007 | 4:03 PM White House correspondent Kenneth T. Walsh: Despite former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's lead in the polls, Republican insiders say the GOP base is so divided and Giuliani's ascension is so fragile that the party's presidential nomination for 2008 is totally up for grabs. "I've never seen the party so split," says a GOP strategist with close ties to evangelical Christians. Giuliani, despite his strong image from 9/11, consistently falls well short of a majority. The latest CNN survey gives him a 34-18 lead over John McCain...

Watch gag-worthy video here. Knowing what we know now about Rudy Giuliani's serially adulterous behavior while married to Donna Hanover and how he dumped her and abandoned his children - moving her and his children out of the Mayor's mansion to move in his latest sexual partner - this video truly triggers the gag reflex. What a loyal husband and father Rudy turned out to be. What a crass and dishonest display of fatherhood and marital bliss this ad was. It brings to mind the garbage that Bill Clinton used to do - the "impromptu" dance on the beach with...

Secret study cited "weirdness factor" among candidate weaknesses FEBRUARY 12--As he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani will have to contend with political and personal baggage unknown to prospective supporters whose knowledge of the former New York mayor is limited to his post-September 11 exploits. So, in a bid to educate the electorate, we're offering excerpts from a remarkable "vulnerability study" that was commissioned by Giuliani's campaign prior to his successful 1993 City Hall run. The confidential 450-page report, authored by Giuliani's research director and another aide, was the campaign's attempt to identify possible lines of attack against...

Views of Giuliani put GOP to the test His moderate stands on social issues part with conservative base .......On the first day of his five-day California swing, a blog popular with state conservatives, Flash Report.org, posted a YouTube clip from a February 2000 Meet the Press in which Giuliani boasts that no public official in the nation is "more strongly pro-immigrant than I am." For conservatives who want a president who will crack down on illegal immigration, that sort of talk is very troubling. "That's a big mistake," said Linda Sutter, 50, of Crescent City, Calif., who supports Giuliani because...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - New Hampshire residents likely to vote in the Republican presidential primary a year from now think more highly of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani than any of his rivals, a poll released Tuesday shows. ADVERTISEMENT Giuliani's net favorability rating — the proportion of people viewing him favorably minus the proportion viewing him unfavorably — was 56 percent, well ahead of Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), 32 percent, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 26 percent, in the University of New Hampshire poll for WMUR-TV in Manchester."He's the lesser-known candidate, but he has that rock...

Today Peggy Noonan makes a glancing reference to something I've been meaning to write about for a while with respect to Rudy Giuliani: On 9/10/01 he was a bum, on 9/11 he was a man, and on 9/12 he was a hero. Life can change, shift, upend in an instant. Noonan is over dramatizing for effect, of course, but a while back I got an email from a self-described liberal in NYC saying much the same thing - namely, that in the mythical afterglow of Rudy's performance on 9/11 people have forgotten that (to paraphrase my emailer's formulation) "on September...

WASHINGTON -- Eager to head off Rudolph Giuliani's recent gains in the polls, conservative activists this week strengthened their attacks, with some promising to step up their efforts on the Internet, talk radio and "below-the-radar" to discredit him going forward. They are taking direct aim at one of Giuliani's strongest selling points, at least to some backers -- that he is the Republicans' best hope of stopping Hillary Rodham Clinton. These critics argue that his nomination would prompt a conservative third-party candidate to join the race and split the GOP vote, clearing the way for Clinton's election. "There's no way...

A local public relations heavyweight with ties to the Bush family has joined Rudy Giuliani's presidential team. Gordon C. James Public Relations is doing work for the former New York City Mayor's presidential bid. Gordon James has done work in the past for former President George H.W. Bush and current President George W. Bush. That includes inauguration planning, advance and public relations work. James' wife, Lisa, ran the Bush/Cheney 2008 campaign. She also works for the public relations firm and ran unsuccessfully for chair of the Arizona Republican Party last month. Gordon James told The Business Journal he had no...

The Chicago Tribune seems to fancy itself in the role of kingmaker when it comes to knocking candidates out of political races, and helping hometown politicians it favors to win. Its latest effort has targeted Rudy Giuliani, who all but officially entered the race for the Republican nomination for President in 2008 this week. Within two days of his announcement, a lengthy "investigative" piece appeared on the front page of the paper trashing Giuliani for his high speaking fees and some questionable business clients in the years since he entered the private sector. The hit piece authored by Andrew Zajac...

Rudy Giuliani will prevent a conservative crack-up. Today, after very little effort, Giuliani is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Dick Morris is predicting a Giuliani vs. Clinton race in 2008. Yet some conservatives are dubious of the man who cleaned up New York, returned it to a vigor unimaginable from the 1960s through the 1980s, and then led New York and the country heroically through 9/11. Well, one knows a politician by the company he keeps, and Giuliani has around him the financial people who created the libertarian-conservative Manhattan Institute. He relied heavily on the Institute's policies while governing...

“Murder and graffiti are two vastly different crimes,” Rudy Giuliani once said. “But they are part of the same continuum, and a climate that tolerates one is more likely to tolerate the other.” Good point, Rudy. Now, what about a climate — not to mention a Republican presidential candidate — that not only tolerates, but allows unelected judges to legalize the practice of delivering a child until only its head remains within its mothers womb so the child can be killed by sucking out its brains? What about a climate where same-sex couples are given the same legal status as...

Orwellian euphemism is nothing new in the realm of contemporary American political discourse. Choice, translated by the left, refers to the chopping up of unborn children. Peaceful patriotism permits the trashing of our troops. Just now in a shocking scandal for adjectives everywhere, verbal authorities have booked articulate for bearing concealed racial overtones. We shouldn't, but we do get acclimated to this kind of rank pseudo-intellectualism after a while. What is jarring is to hear linguistic engineering of mind-bending magnitude coming not from the left, but from conservative commentators themselves. Monday night on Hannity and Colmes, RINO Rudi announced his...

Rudy Giuliani is in. Suggested campaign slogan: "He dealt with Brooklyn. He can handle Baghdad.'' He's not a sure thing; he has enough baggage to fill the cargo hold of a cruise ship. His sundry personal-life issues bother social conservatives; the gun control stance dismays the Second Amendment wing of the party; the pro-choice opinions alarm the evangelicals. That leaves about 47 Republicans, right? After all, it's just a party of cousin-marrying yahoos who'd sooner shoot up Planned Parenthood than vote for one of those fish-on-Friday types. Right? No. Voters are more flexible and forgiving than you might expect. And...

Breaking on Fox News. Giuliani Files Statement of Candidacy for President No article yet.

Days of blood and debt and fire define Bill Owens' years as governor. Nights of grief and worry. The eager young conservative elected in 1998 is a remade man today. Accomplished. Scarred. More interesting. After eight years as governor, Owens will leave office next month, having put his imprint on Colorado and its politics. Views of his legacy are as stormy as his times. Owens first ran for the office in a more innocent era, on a cozy and concise platform, promising to build roads, boost schools and cut taxes. And then he was governor and confronted almost immediately by...

Veteran U.S. civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, right, walks past an anti-U.S. banner placed among the rubble of a building that was destroyed following Israeli bombardment during the 34-day long Hezbollah-Israel war, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006. Jackson, who said Tuesday that an Israeli soldier seized by Palestinian militants and two others held captive by Hezbollah are alive, also said Syria, a main backer of both Hamas and Hezbollah, wanted to be involved in a prisoner swap that included the three Israelis and Syrian nationals detained by Israel in the Golan Heights....

US brushes off 'crap' accusation Mr Prescott made "an honest and good point", Mr Cohen said The White House has made light of reports alleging that John Prescott said George Bush had been "crap" on the Middle East peace process. Tony Snow, a White House spokesman, said: "The president has been called a lot worse and I suspect will be." Mr Snow added that President Bush would have to face "piquant names" being hurled at him from time to time. The deputy prime minister said the reports of his comments in a private meeting with MPs were inaccurate. However, Mr...

Mel Gibson has become the designated Hitler-of-the-Month for August 2006, displacing both Saddam Hussein and Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the previous front-runners. However, conservative Christians, before rushing to condemn or defend their fallen hero, might ponder the incident for a moment, before presuming to form an opinion. To give credit where it is due, Zev Chafets, in his LA Times commentary “Slurring More than His Words”, makes several valuable points. To begin with, Mr. Gibson’s first line of defense—the Tequila made him do it—is absurd. As Chafets commnts, “Evidently Gibson wants people to believe that, although he personally loves Jews, the...

DOES IT LOOK LIKE SOMEONE IS GUNNING FOR SOMEONE HERE?This morning we get the word that when Rush Limbaugh landed at Palm Beach International Airport in his private plane yesterday the customs folks decided to go through every bag on the aircraft. Alas .. they found a bottle of Viagra that didn't have his name on it. Now this is a big news story, and officials are saying that Limbaugh could be charged with a misdemeanor. OK .. this is a non-narcotic drug. Limbaugh's attorney explains that the bottle carried the doctor's name for privacy reasons. Since authorities in Palm...

Limbaugh Detained At Airport Image Joy Purdy Reporting (CBS4 News) WEST PALM BEACH Sources have confirmed to CBS4 News that conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been detained at Palm Beach International Airport for the possible possession of illegal prescription drugs Monday evening. Limbaugh was returning on a flight from the Dominican Republic when officials found the drugs, among them Viagra. Limbaugh entered a plea deal back in April in a previous case where his charge of fraud to conceal information to obtain prescriptions was dropped under the condition he continue undergoing treatment for addiction. Limbaugh had admitted to...