Free Republic

Rudy Giuliani analyzes the reason the Republican party is losing in recent years and what it can do to enlarge it's base. Stressing the importance of big tent politics and under-emphasizing social issues. In any case, the economy is the main reason McCain lost, but other social issues have also created a bad stereotype of Republicans in general.

The collapse of Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid is surely one of the most striking developments of the 2008 campaign. Strategic mistake? I don’t think so. Rudy lost because he dissed social conservatives. In fact, the reason Giuliani missed those early primaries is because he dissed social conservatives. Giuliani’s attempt to take apart and reconstitute Ronald Reagan’s winning political coalition was his original sin. And Rudy’s primal transgression continues to shape the dynamics of 2008’s Republican presidential race. With Reagan’s erstwhile coalition now cast out of the garden of amity, only recognizing and understanding Rudy’s fault will allow us to find...

Rudy Giuliani appears to be pondering an end to his long pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination. In a meeting in the back of his chartered plane en route to St. Petersburg, Fla., a short while ago, the onetime, longtime GOP front-runner told a small group of reporters, including The Times' Louise Roug: "The winner of Florida will win the nomination."

BOCA RATON, Fla. A flood of early ballots from Republican voters, has already exceeded the turnout in the contests in Iowa, NH and Nevada. As of Friday night, nearly 400,000 party Republicans had cast early votes, either in person or by mail......There were 3.8 million Republicans qualified to vote Tuesday. That offers a glimmer of hope to Giuliani's calculated effort to get his supporters to vote early hoping to bank a substantial number of votes before losses in other early states raised questions about his viability and his competitors arrived in the state, driving down his numbers in the polls....

GIULIANI PARTNERS LLC 5 Times Square Confidential memo to file From R. Giuliani July 15, 2002 In one week I bought a new 3100-square-foot Central Park apartment for $5.25 million and dumped Donna for $6.8 million, plus the old apartment, child support, taxes, and legal fees. Not bad for a guy who made a measly $294,000 in 1992—my last year of private employment before becoming mayor. I'll make $8 million this year just for delivering my already oldie but goodie, the stock September 11 speech. Without 9-11, I'd be lucky to get a date at the Guy Molinari Republican Club...

Rudy Giuliani's toughness edged toward ruthlessness and became a defining aspect of his mayoralty. NYC spent at least $7M settling civil rights lawsuits and paying retaliatory damages during the Giuliani years. After unidentified city workers complained of pressure to hand contracts to Giuliani-favored organizations, investigators examined not the charges but the leakers' identity. “There were constant loyalty tests: ‘Will you shoot your brother?’ ” said Marilyn Gelber, environmental commissioner under Mr. Giuliani. “People were marked for destruction for disloyal jokes.” Giuliani paid careful attention to the art of political payback. When former Mayors Koch and Dinkins spoke publicly of Mr....

For 50 days, Giuliani had the Sunshine State nearly to himself........he’s sucked up to Miami's Cuban vote, pandered in Cape Canaveral about the space program, tried to scare retirees in South Florida. There he is riding in a fire truck in a Miami parade, trailed by angry firefighters who blame him for multiple failures when NY was attacked.......in the Panhandle, he's the consummate Yankees fan trying to look down-home on the Redneck Riviera. Yet, the more they see of Giuliani, the more his poll numbers tank...... Rudy’s campaign is in meltdown. Amazing how much voters bring up his tawdry personal...

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who for months was the first presidential choice of California Republicans, may have blown it. A new statewide Field Poll is the latest survey to confirm that Giuliani, who sat out the first round of primaries to concentrate on the big states such as Florida and California, has slipped behind Arizona Sen. John McCain and other Republican hopefuls. Ten months ago, Giuliani claimed more than a third of California GOP voters in the Field Poll, with McCain the only other candidate reaching double digits. But the latest survey, taken this month, found that he...

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. - Rudy Giuliani splurged on Florida, lavishing time and money on a high-risk gamble that the state would vault him to the Republican presidential nomination. Five days before his make-or-break primary, all that last year's national front-runner has to show for the love he's given the Sunshine State is a diminished standing. "We are gaining support. I think you'll see that over the next few days," Giuliani insisted Wednesday, hours before a new poll showed him trailing John McCain and Mitt Romney. Florida was supposed to be "Rudy Country." His game plan called for playing down earlier-voting...

Rudy Giuliani may have made a great mistake by not campaigning in New Hampshire, Nevada, Iowa and South Carolina. But between Rudy Giuliani (and, for that matter, Mitt Romney) on the one hand and John McCain on the other, there is little question as to who more embodies mainstream conservative and Republican principles. But Giuliani is not merely more of a conservative than John McCain. In fact, if it is Ronald Reagan that Republicans want, Giuliani is extraordinarily close to that venerated man. Ronald Reagan stood for two great beliefs: that big government is a big problem for a free...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is trailing in the race for the Republican presidential nomination even on his home turf of New York state, a new poll showed on Monday. The WNBC/Marist poll ahead of the February 5 primaries in New York showed 34 percent of registered Republicans support John McCain, compared to 23 percent for Giuliani. Among Republicans likely to vote, McCain kept his 34 percent support, while Giuliani was tied in second place with Mitt Romney at 19 percent. McCain's campaign has been boosted by wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina...

Giuliani's must-win Florida strategy is in trouble.... McCain moved up 9 points, supported by 22% likely GOP primary voters, compared to Giuliani's 20%, down 8 points (Quinnipiac). Huckabee and Romney got 19%..... Giuliani's poor performance in Iowa and NH is negatively impacting his candidacy........"he staked his entire campaign on winning Florida and that lead has evaporated," the pollster said. But there is a silver lining - 59%, including many Northeast transplants and Cuban-Americans, swear they will not abandon him.......only 42% of McCain's backers say they'll stick with him.

HAVANA PARTY: Giuliani aboard a vintage firetruck at the Three Kings Parade in Miami's Little Havana. A fading, cash-strapped Giuliani...all but admitted a defeat here could doom his candidacy. Giuliani courted the influential Hispanic vote in South Florida. His base of support is Florida's Northeastern transplants, and Cuban-Americans. His support has eroded here following poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire and he is battling a cash crunch ....about a dozen top staffers will not be paid this month to help preserve resources for Florida, and Super Tuesday.

Giuliani's top campaign staffers are working without pay and his national finance co-chairman has stepped down - signs of his presidential campaign's turmoil and financial difficulties........just weeks before the make-or-break Florida primary Jan. 29. The Giuliani campaign announced it had $7M to spend in the primary as of Dec. 31. But that doesn't include millions of dollars in TV ads since then..... national finance co-chair, Roy Bailey, has stepped down and is working at Rudy's firm Giuliani Partners.

About a dozen senior campaign staffers for Rudy Giuliani are foregoing their January paychecks, aides said Friday, a sign of possible money trouble for the Republican presidential candidate. "We have enough money, but we could always use more money,'' contended Mike DuHaime, Giuliani's campaign manager and one of those who now is working for free. "We want to make sure we have enough to win.'' At the end of December, he said the campaign had $11.5 million cash on hand, $7 million of which can be used for the primary. He disputed the notion of a cash-strapped campaign, and said...

McCain's NH victory was the best news for Giuliani's wacko strategy of hiding in the dugout until the final innings....the Republican nom remains completely up for grabs and probably will remain so for several more weeks. If McCain is the nominal front-runner, the Palmetto State - where voters have very long memories and carry very long grudges - will rise up and destroy him on illegal immigration. It is altogether possible that a sure conservative like Fred Thompson wins SC, further flattening the field. And a flattened field heading into Florida is the only way Giuliani can hope his strange...

DERRY, N.H. -- Toward the conclusion of a town hall meeting here, Rudy Giuliani called on a woman to ask the last question when a man stood up and screamed, "What about the 50 million?" He continued to scream at Rudy about his pro-choice views while Rudy smiled and urged the woman to continue her question and ignore the protester. The woman screamed at the protester, "You are out of line. Sit down." Then the crowd started chanting, "Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!..." Security came and escorted the screaming man out. As he was being dragged offf, he was yelling, "All these...

MANCHESTER, N.H. - Rudy Giuliani has never had a problem getting attention — until now. "We are in good shape," the Republican presidential candidate insists even though he was largely missing in action in Iowa and is struggling in New Hampshire, the two states that are the epicenters of the race. His unconventional road map to the nomination carried this very risk from the start. It called for playing down those states that opened the primary season in favor of spending more time and resources in the delegate-rich ones that vote later this month and on Feb. 5 such as...

Republican Blood Feud The worst-case primary scenario. By David Freddoso Less than a week remains before Republicans begin the long and arduous road to choosing a nominee. It begins in Iowa on Jan. 3, and continues at least through Feb. 5, the day that more than 20 states will select delegates to the convention in Minnesota’s Twin Cities next fall. The possibility for idle speculation is endless. But there are a number of things we know for sure. First, the rise of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is more than a passing phenomenon. Polls show that his religious conservative voters...

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa - Giuliani's support here has plummeted into single digits....according to new surveys released yesterday. A Reuters poll shows the ex-mayor capturing just 8% of the vote - tied for fourth place with Thompson and Ron Paul. An MSNBC poll shows Giuliani tied with Paul for fifth place with a measly 5% of the vote - near the bottom of the pack. "Where has he been? He stopped showing up," said conservative activist Jamie Johnson, who runs a radio station. Giuliani did not air a single TV ad in Iowa, and his 15 trips here were far...

....an oversized sample shows Huckabee slipping and no longer ahead of Romney. A private corporate interest commissioned a phone-bank survey of 15,000 Iowans who will attend Republican caucuses Jan. 3....showed Romney with 30%, Huckabee 26%. Sen. John McCain was third with 12%, Rudy Giuliani fourth at 9%. Fred Thompson had 1%, with slightly fewer votes than Rep. Ron Paul (also at 1%)....McCain was the leading second-choice candidate for both Huckabee and Romney voters.

HAMPTON, N.H. — Rudolph W. Giuliani has entered a turbulent period in his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, marked by what his aides acknowledge are missteps, sharp shifts in strategy and evidence that reports about his personal life have hurt his national standing. A $3 million investment in radio and television advertising in New Hampshire, a belated effort to become competitive in this state, is now viewed by the campaign as a largely wasted expenditure. A Boston Globe poll published Sunday found that support for Mr. Giuliani had dropped in New Hampshire over the past month, even before any...

Here's why I support Giuliani, and it has nothing to do with his response to September 11: Rudy Giuliani eliminated street crime in New York City. The conventional wisdom said it couldn't be done, and the reasons are suspiciously similar to what the same bloviators say about the war against Islamofascism today: 1. There actually isn't a problem; if you think it's a problem, you're a racist. 2. Okay, there is a problem, but it's because of white racism; to try to eradicate the problem using barbaric force without solving the root causes is useless. 3. Okay, force can in...

--SNIP--Giuliani is finally suffering from the natural gravitational pull of his messy personal life (as mayor, he financed a security detail for his mistress) and his ideological heterodoxy (especially on social issues).......it has dragged him down to a level where it is no longer an invisible force. His supporters thought that he'd bump up in the NH polls once he started advertising. But since Nov 10 he's spent more than Romney and McCain, and Giuliani's numbers have, if anything, declined slightly. Pundits speculated that the WOT was the new social issue, more important to Republicans than abortion or gay marriage.........over...

--SNIP--Giuliani's messy personal life is a big turnoff to women voters....causing the public humiliation of his second wife, tax-paid bodyguards for his girlfriend and a frosty relationship with his kids: It all makes wives and moms around the country skeptical of putting him in the White House. "If he can't control his personal life, I just don't see how he can control the country," said a Lucas, Kan housewife. Fifty % of women overall - and 48% of GOP women - said that Giuliani dumping second wife Donna Hanover at a 2000 press conference would make them less likely to...

Giuliani admits his personal faults in a major speech today....according to excerpts released by his campaign. The thrice-married ex-mayor will say, "If you are looking for perfection, you are not going to find it in me." Giuliani's speech comes on the heels of unflattering media coverage......Team Rudy selected Florida for his address because the state's Jan. 29 primary is considered his "firewall" should he lose several early-voting states.

Mike Huckabee was supposed to have a target on his back when he walked into an Iowa auditorium yesterday. But the former Arkansas governor, suddenly the leader among Republicans in the state set to render the first presidential verdict Jan. 3, emerged unscathed and was allowed to rise above the fray and address the nation yesterday as the great uniter. This was the final debate before voters head to caucus and was the last chance for his rivals to try to cut Huckabee down to size, but it was an opportunity missed – either because of a stilted debate format,...

Late in his tenure as mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani billed tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses to little-known city agencies as he was beginning an extramarital affair, a political Web site reported Wednesday. The report, on the Politico Web site, cited documents obtained under the New York State Freedom of Information Law. But it was unclear from those documents whether Giuliani allocated those travel costs, from 1999 through 2001, to obscure city offices in an attempt to conceal expenses associated with the relationship or for some accounting purpose. The administration of Giuliani's successor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg,...

Giuliani stammered his way through a defense of tax dollars spent on a security detail for his girlfriend when he was New York's married mayor. "There were threats; they had to be responded to," Giuliani told NBC's "Meet the Press"....."Judith didn't particularly want it, but it was done because they took the view that it was serious and it had to be done this way." Giuliani has been dogged about how much his extramarital affair cost the city.

It's not easy keeping track of Rudy Giuliani's shag-related expenditures of taxpayer money while mayor of New York. For one thing, it's impossible to get a total of the amount spent guarding the mayor's then-girlfriend. And the available records are spotty at best. But we gave it the ol' TPM try. So here, without further ado, is our timeline. 5/99 -- Judith Nathan and Giuliani meet at Club Macanudo, a cigar bar on the Upper East Side. 7/3/99 -- NYPD Officers charge the city for gas to "accompany the mayor to Southampton." 7/31/99 -- Four officers accompanying Giuliani stay at...

Giuliani tried to ride out new questions over taxpayer-funded chauffeur police services witnesses said were provided to Judith Nathan well before the married mayor revealed his extramarital involvement in 2000..... asked about Nathan's city-funded wheels, Giuliani non-answered "Thank you," and "Have a good night." Nathan's police escorts were thought to have begun in December 2000, after Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said she was threatened and needed around-the-clock protection. (Giuliani hid security detail and travel expenses for Nathan in obscure city agencies.) "If Nathan was provided police protection prior to their being a security-threat assessment, it probably was an illegal use...

CLEAR LAKE, Iowa - Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rudy Giuliani have seen their once-formidable leads sliced in a new national poll - she lost 11 points while Giuliani plummeted by 9 points in the last month. Clinton dropped to 39% from 50%.....Giuliani dropped to 25% from 34% over the same period.

The day-to-day operations of Rudy Giuliani's consulting company have been formally turned over to one of the candidate's longtime advisers - and the former mayor hasn't been to his office in more than a month..........."My role is chairman of Giuliani Partners," said Peter Powers, deputy mayor under Giuliani and a friend since childhood. "I run the company on a day-to-day basis; Rudy's role is none........He has an equity interest in the in the firm, but he is not involved in the management of the firm. He is not involved in any clients."

A former Giuliani administration official says he's "sick" that his little-known agency was used to hide taxpayer money that funded police escorts during the ex-mayor's Hamptons romantic rendezvous. "The cover-up and explanations have been so disingenuous," said Brendan Sexton, Procurement Policy Board Chair in 2000.....which was charged $29,757 for travel bills racked up by Giuliani's security detail as he hung out with then-girlfriend Judith Nathan on Long Island. "It's disturbing that any government organization could be used to conceal from the public how their money was being spent."

BLUFFTON, S.C. (AP) -- Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani said Friday he wouldn't try to change laws that make citizens of children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants, noting that it's a matter determined by the Constitution. "That's a very delicate balance that's been arrived at, and I wouldn't change that," Giuliani said in response to a question while campaigning at Sun City Hilton Head, a sprawling retirement community down the South Carolina coast from Charleston.

TALKING POINTS MEMO is swimming in credit card receipts from Rudy Giuliani's administration; one thing in particular has struck us: in 2001, apparently with an eye to future globetrotting, Giuliani's administration sent a check for $400,000 to American Express. Though the amount was billed to the Assigned Counsel Administrative Office, an office that provides lawyers for indigent defendants, the money served as an advance against Giuliani's future travel, and other expenses later incurred by the mayor's office and his security detail. The unusually large prepayment, as yet unreported, adds weight to the theory that the Giuliani administration was using accounting...

Giuliani's secret relationship forced taxpayers to pay a mayoral aide's hotel tab according to city documents....while Giuliani was visiting Judith Nathan at her LI condo. Taxpayers also paid security detail motel bills in Pennsylvania, Nathan's home state......records show two charges for gas on April 8, 2000, in Tannersville, Pa, about 1/2 outside Nathan's hometown of Hazleton. It isn't clear if security was guarding both Nathan and Giuliani, or if she was alone at the time......Nathan began receiving police protection, not long after her relationship with Giuliani became public.....paid from obscure mayoral agencies.........

CLEARWATER, Fla. Sliding in the polls, Giuliani is no longer sure he can win the nomination--taking Florida after losing early states that traditionally determine the nominees. Giuliani's problem is not so much tactical as it is substantive. During Wednesday's debate, Republicans saw the Rudy they've been doing their best to pretend did not exist. He wasn't the crime-fighting, terrorist-bashing, smiling hero they've come to like so much....he's the gun-grabbing, abortion-supporting philanderer that Republicans don't waste much time with - especially in Florida where conservatives turned the Terri Schiavo case into a national cause.

Giuliani says obscure city agencies were billed for out-of-town credit-card charges of his mayoral security detail because the NYPD was so slow in paying its bills.......the Mayor's Office spent $165,985 for out-of-town travel in fiscal 2000 and in 2001 $184,796. It allocated another $143,867 to 12 agencies under Giuliani's control in 2000 and $435,215 in 2001, periods when he was conducting an extramarital affair with Nathan, now his third wife. Over two years, $579,082 in travel bills - including rental cars, motel bills and plane tickets - run up by Giuliani's security team didn't immediately appear as an expense incurred...

Giuliani tapped budgets of obscure city agencies to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel expenses in 1999 and 2000 when the married Mayor was secretly dating future wife Judith Nathan according to a sensational report..... Auditors spotted a $34,000 expense for out-of-city travel at the Loft Board. The board's director insisted the tab wasn't run up at the tiny agency, which regulates lofts.....then $143,867 in nonlocal travel at 12 small mayoral agencies in fiscal 2000, including $10,054 for the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities turned up...on top of $165,985 in "nonlocal travel" billed directly to the Mayor's...

The colorful brochure from Mitt Romney's presidential campaign looks like many of the political fliers flooding Iowa mail boxes this time of the year. But there is a difference. The piece is Romney's first to single out his rivals by name, a shift that shows him becoming more aggressive in the final weeks before the Jan. 3 caucuses. The mailing juxtaposes photos and quotes from Romney showing his support for a federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman with photos and quotes showing Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Fred Thompson all oppose...

Giuliani could be grilled about law-breaking pal Kerik, 9/11, gay marriage - his backing the hated Boston Red Sox, according to 5,000 questions submitted for tomorrow's YouTube Republican debate co-sponsored by CNN in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Fred Thompson said NYC isn't a model for the rest of the country....Giuliani should stop basing (gun-control) on his time as mayor. Giuliani and Hillary are rolling out splashy dueling bus tours. Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses are less than six weeks away.......Clinton and husband Bill plan to blanket the state virtually nonstop. Monday, Clinton jets to NH. This weekend Giuliani goes to Concord, then to City Hall in Manchester. NH votes Jan. 8. Giuliani trailed front-runner, Mitt Romney, in the latest CNN/WMUR poll...with 16% to Romney's 33%. John McCain has crawled back to 2nd place with 18%.

Fred Thompson ....campaigning at a NH gun store..... told reporters Giuliani too often turns to his time as NYC mayor to explain his support for stronger gun restrictions. "....he was at bill-signing ceremonies with NY Sen Chuck Schumer and President Clinton and others for gun-control legislation over the years. Of course, he's not as outspoken about it any more."

COLUMBIA, S.C. - When Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson walks down the aisles of a gun show Saturday in Charleston, the game he's hunting won't be hard to spot. The former senator and actor is looking to differentiate himself from rivals Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney - and use his appeal as a "country boy from Tennessee" who knows NASCAR and hunting to portray the city slickers as out of step with this early voting state's residents. There is little doubt gun rights are a tough issue for the front of the GOP pack. Former New York Mayor Giuliani has...

Yesterday, Senator Fred Thompson issued a statement on the Supreme Court's decision to grant certiorari in the District of Columbia gun ban case. It reads, in part: I’ve always understood the Second Amendment to mean what it says – it guarantees a citizen the right to “keep and bear” firearms, and that’s why I’ve been supportive of the National Rifle Association’s efforts to have the DC law overturned. In general, lawful gun ownership is a pretty simple matter. The Founders established gun-owner rights so that citizens would possess and be able to exercise the universal right of self-defense. Guns enable...

Giuliani declared Americans should not expect a “pretense of perfection” from candidates"......he believes Obama’s conversation (about previous drug use) was "completely appropriate......."all of us that run for public office--are all human beings. If we haven’t made mistakes don’t vote for us cause we got some big ones that are gonna happen in the future and we won't know how to handle them.”

In 1973, a 29-year-old federal prosecutor named Rudy Giuliani indicted a Brooklyn congressman, unknowingly creating a political opening for an ambitious 23-year-old named Chuck Schumer. It is the first and least known link between two powerful New York politicians whose paths have crossed and careers intersected in often surprising ways over the past four decades. But it certainly wasn't the last. Just two weeks ago, Sen. Schumer (D-N.Y.) found himself defying his own party to confirm U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a retired Manhattan judge and close friend of the former mayor. Schumer and Giuliani may seem an odd pairing,...

A group of 9/11 firefighters and victims' family members with eyes on derailing Republican Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign is close to a decision on forming an entity that would run issue ads in key early nominating states. "TV made him a hero, and we'll use TV to take him down," New York Fire Chief Jim Riches told ABC News. The final decision about the formation of an outside entity will happen sometime within the next few weeks after the group finalizes its plans at a meeting scheduled for after Thanksgiving. So far, though, under Riches' leadership, the group has sought...

The debate dominatrix knows how to rattle Obambi. Mistress Hillary started disciplining her fellow senator last winter. She has continued to flick the whip in debates. She had to do it again in Vegas, this time using her voice, gaze and body language to such punishing effect that Obama looked as if he had been brought to heel. Other guys, like Rudy, wouldn’t even be looking for a chance to greet Hillary, as Obama always does. Other guys, like Rudy, wouldn’t care if she iced them. But she can tell that Obama does care, ...that he responds to the sort...