Redstate

Posted at 7:51am on May 7, 2008 On Party Unity

By Martin A. Knight

This started out as comment in reply to a comment by BigGator5 (unfortunately operating under the misimpression that the diary I posted yesterday was about John McCain) in response to me. It just got too long. Anyway, BigGator5 asks;
"Why are you arguing against party unity?"

My response to that is that I actually am asking for party unity.

Unity that does not end when Election Day is over and done with. We want some more of that Unity on the floors of Congress, in the State Legislatures and in the Governor's Mansions when its time to vote 'aye' or 'nay.' We want some more of that Unity when it comes to policy, when it comes to the tough votes on Capitol Hill, in Lansing, Harrisburg, Richmond, Olympia, Austin, Bismarck, Trenton, etc.

Posted in Bill Weld | moderates | Reagan | Republicans | Rockefeller | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:16am on Jan. 31, 2008 MI Morning Update: Hope is in the Air - Giuliani and Edwards Call It Quits - Presidential Debate

By saul anuzis

280 Days until Election Day

MORNING UPDATE:

There is “hope” in the air that Republicans and Democrats can work with the Governor to accomplish some of the items the Governor addressed in her State of the State. The devil will be in the details…but at least there is hope.

Will her rhetoric be matched by a bipartisan approach…or ultimately political wrangling?

Mayor Rudy Giuliani drops out of the presidential contest for the Republican nomination…basically making this a McCain vs. Romney race on Super Tuesday.

Posted in John Edwards | Michigan Republican Party | Republicans | Rudy Giuliani | Saul Anuzis — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:06pm on Jan. 28, 2008 The New Federalism Speech

The Speech Rudy Should Have Given

By Dan McLaughlin

As regular readers know (see here and here), I continue to believe that Rudy Giuliani is the best potential president in the GOP field - and specifically, the one most likely to accomplish conservative policy priorities - and would be a strong candidate in the general election. That assessment, which I won't rehash here, is based in large part on Rudy's personal characteristics, temperament and accomplishments; after all, ideas don't run for president, people do. Of course, Rudy's record on social issues has long been the primary obstacle to winning the nomination, and everyone who paid any attention whatsoever to Rudy's record and to Republican politics over the past few decades knew that. Thus, a Rudy for President campaign needed to have a well-thought-out plan from Day One as to how to deal with that obstacle.

Since the summer of 2005, I have been laying out in public and in private - including to people who hoped, at the time, to have the ear of the Giuliani camp - my roadmap to how Rudy could overcome this obstacle. I never thought he could win over everyone, but I believed then and believe now that there was an opportunity, had Rudy played his cards the right way at the right time, to take the goodwill and respect Rudy enjoyed with socially conservative voters who respected him as a leader and offer a compromise that would keep enough pro-lifers, in particular, on board to build a winning coalition in the primaries and hold enough of the party together - and appeal to enough independent or swing voters - to march to victory in November.

Rudy has followed some of the paths I laid out (not that I take credit for this), but he never gave the speech I thought would really make the difference. When voters go to the polls tomorrow in Florida, they may breathe new life into Rudy's campaign, or more likely they may end it. Either way, it's probably too late to give this speech - and so I offer it to you, dear readers, and to posterity.

Read On...

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Roe v. Wade | Rudy Giuliani | Schism — Comments (28)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:03pm on Jan. 25, 2008 A Rudy Reality Check [comments enabled]

By Dan McLaughlin

Like the Fredheads before South Carolina, I refuse to just roll over and play dead on Rudy Giuliani, who I believe remains the best potential president among the available Republican contenders and who I still think would be a strong candidate in November. But the simple fact is, the polls are not looking good for Rudy. Look at RCP: six straight polls showing Rudy running third in Florida. Rudy seems destined to get a much stronger third place than Fred did, but he almost certainly need to win Florida outright to remain viable, and he absolutely needs to beat either McCain or Romney there to have any reason at all to stay in the race through February 5. A Florida victory could rapidly restore his competitiveness in his core states (e.g., NY, NJ, CA, IL) but his voters there, me included, will rapidly defect to one of the remaining viable candidates (probably just McCain and Mitt, if Huck finishes fourth in a Southern state) if Rudy's efforts in Florida can't push him ahead of at least one of those two and allow him to present himself as the strongest anti-McCain or anti-Romney alternative.

Four days to go. Rudy's gotta make his move now, or go the way of Fred. And Huck does too.

Posted at 8:23am on Jan. 16, 2008 "Candidates on Cuba"

By AcademicElephant

Babalu is sponsoring a bi-partisan forum for candidates to go on record with their views on Cuba. So far, only Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani have seen fit to submit anything--and in both cases it's good stuff that indicates they have at least given some thought to the topic.

Hopefully their colleagues on both sides of the political spectrum will get their acts in gear over the coming weeks and take advantage of the opportunity to let voters know where they stand on this issue.

Posted at 12:28am on Jan. 16, 2008 Rudy Giuliani Is Not Pro-Choice

By bluegrassredstate

Rudy Giuliani is not pro-choice, not as traditional Republican voters think of "pro-choice" anyway. You can call him pro-choice if you want, but at your own peril.

The problem with calling him pro-choice in the traditional sense is that he is not pro-abortion like most "pro-choice" abortion supporters. The vast majority of the "pro-choice" crowd is actually just pro-abortion, because they reflexively oppose any and every attempt to make the various abortion laws more just and conform more to common sense.

Posted in 2008 | Abortion | Barack Obama | Hillary Clinton | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:31pm on Jan. 10, 2008 The McCain Temptation

Kicking The Schisms Down The Road

By Dan McLaughlin

Well, the caucusers have been counted in Iowa and Wyoming, and the votes are in in New Hampshire, and the candidate I have endorsed - Rudy Giuliani - has yet to get off the mat, while one guy we all buried last summer, John McCain, is suddenly in the thick of the race, and could officially claim frontrunner status if he can win the Michigan primary on Tuesday, January 15.

As a result - and I've been building to this for the past two months, so New Hampshire just brings this to a head - I find myself on the horns of a dilemma regarding the 2008 GOP presidential primaries, and I don't mind sharing it with you, dear readers: I'm debating whether it's time to back another candidate besides Rudy - specifically, McCain. I don't do this lightly; I've debated the merits of others in the field before, but I don't shed commitments easily, and my longstanding view is that, having made my choice, I won't switch to another candidate unless and until I'm decided to walk away from the Rudy camp for good. I'm still not ready to do that - but for now, at least, I'm happy to see Senator McCain's victory in New Hampshire, and I even sent a donation his way to help him take on Romney and Huckabee.

As regular readers will recall, while I supported McCain in 2000, I have been a long time supporter of Rudy, having followed his career since the mid-1980s, lived in New York City through his second term as Mayor and been through September 11. I laid out in the summer of 2005 my roadmap for how I thought he could pursue the GOP presidential nomination in spite of his pro-choice, socially liberal record and I came out publicly for Giuliani for president in February 2007. Today, I'll explain why McCain may end up being my guy after all - and why the collective impulse of a lot of us to settle on McCain is tantamount to taking the known divisions within the party and kicking them down the road for the sake of this election, even if possibly at the cost of aggravating them further in the interim.

Read On...

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | John McCain | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (118)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:57pm on Jan. 10, 2008 Here's Where I Think We Stand As of Now on the Horse Race

By Dan McLaughlin

Take this for what it's worth, but here with minimal spin is my distillation of the calendar, the polls and the CW as they stand.

1. There is no frontrunner. The winner of Michigan on Tuesday becomes the official frontrunner at least through Florida on the 29th. If it's McCain, he argues that he's a known, vetted national figure who has won 2 of 3 significant contests thus far. He then remains the frontrunner even if he doesn't win SC. If it's Huck, he argues that he has won 2 of 3 and is only now heading for his home region; he stays the frontrunner unless McCain somehow beats him in SC. If it's Mitt, he argues that he alone competed in all 4 contests thus far, won MI & WY, placed second in IA and NH, and has the money to go national on 2/5.

Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Fred Thompson | John McCain | Mike Huckabee | Mitt Romney | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (39) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:27pm on Jan. 10, 2008 The question that should be asked of Rudy tonight, courtesy of IMAO

By Alexham

O.k., this is too funny:

Rudy Giuliani: "Are you even still in this, or did you go back to New York to abort babies and grab guns?"

Posted at 2:44pm on Jan. 9, 2008 Steve Forbes, Rudy, Romney, and the economy

By Soren Dayton

Two days ago (technical problems delayed this) in Manchester, New Hampshire, I sat down with Steve Forbes, and we talked about his endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, and his thoughts on the economic records of the other candidates. As a supporter of Rudy Giuliani's he has the most to say about what he likes about Rudy, but it was interesting to me that he ripped pretty hard into Mitt Romney's record.

Posted in 2008 | Economy | Massacusetts | Mitt Romney | Rudy Giuliani | Steve Forbes | taxes — Comments (46) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:13am on Jan. 3, 2008 Rudy Giuliani on the stump

By Soren Dayton

From 2008-01, NH

Last night I went to a Rudy Giuliani townhall in Hooksett, NH. AP coverage here. One undecided voter who I talked to was trying to decide between Rudy and Mike Huckabee. That voter is a self-identified evangelical Christian, and explained that that was why he was leaning Huckabee. But he also had worries about whether or not Huckabee was a serious candidate and thought that Rudy is electable and a real leader. There were also a lot of cops who talked about how hard it is to clean up a city in the context of the kind of corruption and organized crime that Rudy faced.

Read on

Posted in 2008 | New Hampshire | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 10:30am on Jan. 2, 2008 Endorsing Giuliani

By AcademicElephant

Promoted from diaries by Mark I.

Following the example of many of my esteemed colleagues, I thought I'd ring in the new year by endorsing a Republican candidate for President.

My decision-making process in this cycle has been a simple one as on my trump issue, national security, one candidate has the qualities I would like to see in a commander in chief. That candidate is Rudy Giuliani.

Read on...

Posted in 2008 | Republican primary | Rudy Giuliani — Comments (99) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:33pm on Dec. 21, 2007 Giuliani In The Clear

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

Not that anyone really wants to be, you know, loud and insistent about this.

Posted at 2:08pm on Dec. 21, 2007 Ruffini and York on Rudy (Comments Open)

By Dan McLaughlin

Patrick Ruffini and I have been on the same page w/r/t Rudy's campaign for a long time, and I agree with most everything he says here about Rudy's bad stretch, although I do think the Judith Nathan stories have done the bulk of the damage in the past 4-6 weeks. By the way, note the favorable/unfavorable numbers he cites: McCain is at a stratospheric +50, Rudy is still holding OK at +37 due to having the second-highest favorables in the field but has the highest unfavorables, Huck and Fred are close at +31 and +28 respectively, and Mitt is the weakest at +23 - he's second only to Rudy for highest unfavorable rating and second only to Fred for lowest favorables.

On the Nathan story, Byron York notes more air coming out of the story, but possibly too late to help.