Please God, don’t let this happen
As a lifelong hater of the Mets and Yankees, I sometimes can’t decide which phrase sickens me more, “president Bush” or “subway series”. Thus, you can probably guess how I feel about a “Metro North election” — that is a presidential race pitting Hillary Clinton against Rudy Giuliani (Metro North is the train line that connects New York City to Chappaqua, where Hillary ostensibly lives — clever, no?).
At this point, Hillary may be inevitable for the party nomination if not the general election. Resistance is futile. And Hillary gets more than her share of bad press (check out the blog JustHillary sometime).
The same cannot be said of the media’s treatment of Giuliani. You probably know that Giuliani was Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 2001 and that he generally receives more favorable media coverage than anyone else in the world save John McCain and the pre-Katrina George W. Bush. What you may not know is that these days, Rudy is all about the Benjamins, ethics be damned. Here’s a good piece from Ben Smith (when was the last good piece on New York poltiics this guy didn’t write) in the New York Observer. Highlights include:
- * Giuliani “walked away from the tsunami benefit with $80,000 at a time when celebrities from Bill Clinton and the first President Bush to George Clooney were donating time to the relief effort.”
- * “The core of his firm’s practice is aiding companies in trouble, and as often as not that trouble is—at least partially—political. The client list often reads like the list of witnesses before Congressional committees in some of the highest-profile corporate crises of the last few years: Along with Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns the Indian Point nuclear plant, they include the manufacturers of the painkiller OxyContin, which had become popular as a recreational drug; the scandal-plagued National Thoroughbred Racing Association; and a pharmaceutical-industry trade group, for which Mr. Giuliani produced a study suggesting that imported prescription drugs may be dangerous.”
- * “The only real public questions over his speeches arose in Adelaide, Australia, where Mr. Giuliani spoke to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Research Foundation. The foundation’s director, Maurice Henderson, later went public with his complaints that Mr. Giuliani had been paid the equivalent of $230,000 while the foundation took in just over $15,000 from the fund-raiser.”
And of course there’s Bernie Kerik. Let’s hope the press is just getting warmed up here. Giuliani doesn’t get a free pass just because he made a few nice speeches after 9/11.
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Guiliani won’t make it through the GOP primary, IMO. Too liberal for today’s hijacked Republican party. Not that we still shouldn’t keep an eye on him, for all the good reasons you mention.
I’m more concerned about McCain, who has so far retained most of his lustre, despite carrying more water for Bush & his failed policies than those animated brooms The Sorcerer’s Apprentice conjured up.
Yeah, I agree with bythepeople, McCain is the real risk, as he’s still painted as a moderate when he’s really quite conservative. Guiliani has too many skeletons in the closet that will come out, I think.
Guiliani might appeal to the same group of people who still believe we found WMD’s and live and die by Fox News. As insane as that is, there are still a number of people who feel that way, and I think they will embrace Guiliani.
I don’t think Hillary will get the nomination. First, I don’t think she’s that popular among Democrats — at least, not the Democrats I know (which might be a biased sample). Second, Democrats are pragmatic. Hillary is loathed by right wingers and even many moderates. Hard to imagine that she can win states that Gore or Kerry couldn’t.
McCain is definitely the guy to worry about. As long as the press continues to worship him, he’s going to be tough to beat
[...] I certainly don’t mean to start talking about the 2008 presidential campaign all the time — after all, this is a local blog and 08 is 2 years away — but I just thought I’d follow up on our earlier post about the nightmare scenario of Hillary running against Giuliani. [...]
Well, heck! If’n we’re picking Republican horses, I think Romney’s got a better shot than Giuliani or McCain. People play the “Mormon” card up waaaaaay more than it’s really worth: there is, in fact, quite a cozy relationship between senior members of the SBC and the Mormon Church since their political ends are quite similar. This is one area that American Theocracy covered quite well.
And the thing is: Social Conservatives are actually quite willing to make many sacrifices and compromises as long as they’re allowed to think they’re on the way to Holy War.
I think I’ve talked about this in the past ~ and if not, perhaps I will soon ~ but it seems to me that what matters is not the man but the direction the Republicans choose. In truth, the last three Republican presidents have prove this to be a Republican truth in all elections.
The Man, The Plan or the Canal?…
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Robert F. Kennedy jr. has been on the road for about 3 years now, at a regular speaking fee of $25,000 per speech, doing over 200 speeches per year, and he is viewed as a culture hero for his self enrichment. Is it that Rudy Giuliani gets larger fees that makes his professional motivational career somehow reprehensible to you— or is it just that he is a Republican?
First off, Harry — don’t you think that smart ass tone impresses us? Where did you hear that about Robert Kennedy — Lonsberry, Limbaugh, or Free Republic?
Second — I’m not a big fan of Robert Kennedy. I find his advocacy of the bogus vaccination/autimism link to be irresponsible at best.