In contrast to the more moderate views on immigration supported by Mike Huckabee, David Brooks looks at the views of Rudy Giuliani. Brooks looks not only at Giuliani’s views of today but a more moderate approach–that supported by Giuliani himself in the past. Brooks believes that the previous statements by Giuliani, as opposed to what he says today represents the real Giuliani. Brooks realizes that moderate Republicans are needed and that Giuliani had the potential to reinvigorate the Republican Party:
Of course it hasn’t turned out that way. At the moment, Giuliani and fellow moderate Mitt Romney are attacking each other for being insufficiently Tancredo-esque. They are not renouncing the policies they championed as city and state officials, but the emphasis as they run for federal office is all in the other direction. In effect, they are competing to drive away Hispanic votes and make the party unelectable in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Florida and the nation at large.
In this way, they are participating in the greatest blown opportunity in recent political history. At its current nadir, the G.O.P. had been blessed with five heterodox presidential candidates who had the potential to modernize the party on a variety of fronts. They could be competing to do that, but instead they are competing to appeal to the narrowest slice of the old guard and flatter the most rigid orthodoxies of the Beltway interest groups. Giuliani could have opened the party to the armies of dynamism — the sort of hard-working strivers who live in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx; instead he has shelved one of his core convictions.
Someday Rudy Giuliani will look back on this moment and wonder why he didn’t run as himself.
I don’t know which Giuliani is the real Giuliani, but the Giuliani who is running only locks in the Republicans as the party of extremists out of touch with reality. Instead of a rational moderate he runs as a demagogue attacking Democrats with his scare stories of how a Democratic victory could lead to another terrorist attack. The most notable moment of the debates is not one of Giuliani showing moderation but of attacking Ron Paul after Paul made the only rational comment about foreign policy in any of the Republican debates. Many who have looked at Giuliani’s record show that he was never the moderate which many believe he was and that he would exacerbate the problems created by Bush and Cheney. Regardless of who the real Rudy Giuliani is, Brooks is correct that the Giuliani who is running has no chance of reinvigorating the Republican Party and keeping it out of the hands of right wing extremists.
mullah cimoc say Giuliani him make big ashame for all ameriki.
him take him slut to live in government house while still the marry? Am this “conservative value” ameriki?
him business partner kerrick Giuliani almost make the homeland security czar of usa but now the investigate and hearing of the whores and the rich man condo on policeman salary. Am him the clean police? Conservative values ameriki?
him to serving the homosexual and disobey him bible, but still acting the proud. him to wanting man to marry man, man to marry donkey, and woman to marry the woman. so sick and show the destroy of ameriki society.
him Giuliani to obey every command of masters in tel aviv. him like puppet on fish line. am this make the geo. washington and benjamin frankling proud?
now the republican of ameriki having so many the gay homosexual like the kink sex act, corruption and cruel—now just opposite—not the family value, this the filthy corruption and amerika to be suffer maybe the earthquaking so terrible?
for him true info: stop1984now@yahoo.com for him aemriki learn.
Ontheissues.org rates Giuliani as a “Moderate Libertarian” at 60/60.
Numerous major media have called Giuliani a “libertarian” or a “libertarian conservative.”
Fiscally conservative/socially tolerant = mainstream libertarian.
Giuliani is not quite in the Libertarian Spectrum. But he certainly leans that way. Libertarians should be greatly enthused by his prospects. He’s likely to be the closest thing we ever get in our lifetimes to an actual libertarian President.
Eric,
We’ve already gone over this quite a bit. Those who refer to Giuliani use a quite meaningless meaning for libertarian when they apply the label to him. Even where it appeared Giuliani might have had some libertarian-leaning beliefs, we now see him pandering to the far right instead. Giuliani’s views on increasing the power of the Executive branch also make him a dangerous candidate for those who support freedom or libertarianism.
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