Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (15965)	9/30/2007 12:40:01 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224729

Giuliani proves himself Mr. September By: Jonathan Martin, politico.com Sep 30, 2007 With predictions of his impending fall still unrealized and the first contests of the Republican presidential primary inching closer, Rudy Giuliani enjoyed perhaps his best month yet of the campaign in September. And increasingly, he and his team believe they can position themselves as the inevitable Republican to take on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton next year. Anything can still happen in this muddled GOP race, of course, and Giuliani has a few potential Achilles’ heels. But the former New York mayor has exploited a series of opportunities to thrust himself into the spotlight in recent weeks. The shrewd moves by Giuliani come as conservative fears of Clinton heighten – and that dynamic is crucial. As conventional wisdom increasingly concludes that the sum of all Republican fears will indeed be the Democrats' nominee, the GOP base seems more willing to tolerate the personal and political apostasy of the social moderate. "I honestly think I have the best chance of defeating Hillary Clinton,” Giuliani said flatly to a group of Michigan Republicans gathered at a party retreat last weekend. "And if there are some disagreements that we have about some policy here or some policy there, I ask you to evaluate that in light of the fact that right now if you look at every one of the public opinion polls that have been taken for the last six months I am the only Republican candidate that can defeat Hillary Clinton.” Giuliani’s red meat-filled speech at Mackinac Island was among the most well-received of any of the GOP presidential hopefuls, but it was only one of a number of solid turns he enjoyed in September. Sensing an opportunity to burnish his tough-on-liberals credentials, Giuliani seized on the controversial MoveOn.org attack on General David Petraeus by purchasing his own full-page ad in the New York Times and then launching an internet ad — his first of the campaign — tying the liberal group to remarks Clinton made during Petraeus’s testimony. Though it ran only online, the spot earned considerable media attention and a lengthy portion was played on “Meet the Press.” For Giuliani, the benefit was clear: He played to the sympathies of his party’s conservative base by picking a fight with two of its enemies (MoveOn and the Times) and established a Giuliani v Clinton narrative in the process. A week after the MoveOn dust-up, Giuliani met with the current and two former British Prime Ministers and won accolades from the granddaughter of Winston Churchill during a fundraising trip to London. Images of Giuliani coming out of 10 Downing Street, his aides suggest, were designed to the former mayor as presidential and above the domestic political fray. Giuliani’s status as the man to beat among the Republicans was then underscored even more last week when, during the Democratic debate, his name was invoked by moderator Tim Russert in a question to the contenders. “You will all be running against a Republican opponent, perhaps Rudy Giuliani,” Russert said, before asking them to compare their views on Iran to those of the former mayor. Giuliani came in for some criticism from the Democrats, but for him and his campaign it was a badge of honor: besides a moment of praise for Sen. John McCain for his opposition to torture, Giuliani was the only Republican hopeful being talked about by the Democrats. And the critique came on the same night that Giuliani’s campaign was holding over 1,000 house party fundraisers simultaneously in all 50 states. Even the one treacherous September moment that could’ve proved disastrous for the former mayor didn’t turn out all bad. The odd interlude when he took a cell phone call from his wife aside, Giuliani’s appearance before the National Rifle Association won polite applause and, more important, an indication that a top NRA official now sees the former gun-control advocate less as pariah than convert. “All I know is, I liked what I heard today,” NRA executive vice-president and CEO Wayne LaPierre told the Associated Press. “It’s a good thing, if a politician sees the light and supports the Second Amendment.” Combined with a sustained lead in nearly every national poll and one survey showing him at parity with Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, it’s enough for some skeptics of Giuliani to backpedal.