"Statement of Candidacy"

[sirs]

Giuliani Moves Closer To Presidential Run

February 5, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor whose popularity soared after his response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, moved closer to a full-fledged campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday.

In a sign that he's serious about running for the White House, the two-term mayor was filing a so-called "statement of candidacy" with the Federal Election Commission. In the process, he was eliminating the phrase "testing the waters" from earlier paperwork establishing his exploratory committee, said an official close to Giuliani's campaign.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting any disclosure by Giuliani.
 
Unlike chief GOP rivals Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney, Giuliani has been somewhat ambiguous about whether or not he would ultimately pursue the Republican nomination.

He took the initial step in November of creating a committee to explore a candidacy but added the caveat that he was simply "testing the waters" -- a provision that allows truly uncertain candidates to move forward without any commitment to seek a top spot on the ticket or the need to identify donors. At the time, Giuliani also did not file an official statement declaring that he was a presidential candidate.

The steps Monday put Giuliani on the same level legally as McCain and Romney, the other top-tier GOP candidates who have formed regular exploratory committees and filed statements of candidacy.

Giuliani's cautious and noncommittal attitude has caused some critics to question whether he would abandon his bid even before formally entering the race, as he did in 2000 when he was considering a Senate campaign against Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Fighting back in recent weeks, Giuliani has started to sound and act like a strong contender, traveling to the early primary states of New Hampshire and South Carolina, and arguing that his vision for the future and performance in the past would make him a formidable GOP nominee.

Still, he has stopped short of committing to a run, insisting that he has to decide whether he can make a "unique contribution" to help strengthen the country -- his barometer for whether to run.

"There's a real good chance," Giuliani said Saturday, another coy response to what has been a constant question on the campaign trail.

The shift in campaign organization, however slight, is an indication that Giuliani likes the response he's received as he gauges support while traveling the country.

Behind the scenes, Giuliani has been busy supplementing his cadre of New York loyalists with Washington-savvy political operatives, establishing a fundraising network and setting up a campaign headquarters -- signs of a campaign moving forward.

Despite being immensely popular in national polls, Giuliani faces hurdles to securing the Republican nomination state by state. His moderate stances on issues such as gun control, abortion and gay rights do not sit well with hard-core social conservatives who are a crucial voting group in the nominating contests. His two divorces could be obstacles as well.

But conservatives also aren't entirely sold on McCain, an Arizona senator, and Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and that could even the playing field for Giuliani. He hopes primary and caucus voters look past his liabilities and consider his record of leadership in difficult times.

Giuliani was in his final months as New York City mayor when a pair of planes crashed into the World Trade Center's towers on Sept. 11. Within hours of the attack, the mayor was visiting the site, caked in dust and walking through the chaos -- a moment replayed repeatedly on television.

He was a former U.S. attorney, leading campaigns against organized crime and corruption. He spent two years as the Justice Department's No. 3 post, overseeing all U.S. attorneys, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Marshals Service. The Brooklyn native was first elected New York's mayor in 1993.

Giuliani eyed a run for the U.S. Senate in 2000, but ended that bid while battling prostate cancer and a made-for-tabloids divorce from Donna Hanover.


Article

[Plane]

 

""My image of those on the right is that of a rock star who has passed his peak.  They are Elvis walking down the Sunset Strip in his cape, with his cane and wondering what the hell is everyone looking at.  They still think they're the number one star in the world (and are, sort of, but they have absolutely zero street cred).  And when Priscilla says to them that maybe they ought to cut their hair like that kid Ricky Nelson, they strike out at her and tell her that those kids have been emulating them for year!  And now she wants them to follow them?!?  "They're the King, baby!"

And what they don't understand is that if they don't get off the drugs/koolaid and take that second billing on that remake of A STAR IS BORN, they're going to be considered a joke forever and die an metaphorical and indignant death.""

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IrE6FMpai8




Well ,I wonder if conseratives who have a such a sense of fun as this are really an improvement?

[Plane]

 Should New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani trade in his pinstripes for lipstick and lace? New Yorkers, it seems, like the mayor as a woman.
 Mr. Giuliani's gender-bending performance earlier this month at a charity dinner has won him accolades from voters, who judged his spoof of Marilyn Monroe a hit, a poll showed yesterday.
 The former prosecutor stunned the audience at the annual Inner Circle show March 1 when he appeared on stage in a blonde bouffant wig, pancake makeup and bosomy pink gown.
 He did a reprise of Ms. Monroe's famous, breathy serenade to John F. Kennedy, "Happy birthday, Mr. President" and cavorted with actress Julie Andrews and other cast members of the Broadway musical "Victor/Victoria," which is about a woman masquerading as a man masquerading as a woman.
 The Quinnipiac College survey found 52 percent of New Yorkers liked the mayor's campy cross-dressing, although 25 percent said they thought he made a mistake. The rest were undecided.
 "Polls are so stiff and dull we decided to have a little fun," said pollster Maurice Carroll, who conducted the survey. "Is there a warmer, cuddlier Rudy Giuliani in people's heads? Maybe there is."
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/03-97/03-28-97/zzzwnppl.htm

[sirs]

Rudy's Prez-ing luck
 
Team Giuliani 'bets' latest move a strong step toward run for White House
 
BY DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT
 
Hoping to squelch whispers that he isn't a serious presidential contender, Rudy Giuliani filed a "statement of candidacy" yesterday and hours later delcared, "I'm in this to win."

The former mayor suggested the only thing left to do was order the balloons and confetti.

"I would bet that we are going ahead," he said while campaigning for Republican state Senate candidate Maureen O'Connell on Long Island. "We still have to think about a formal announcement and how to do it, but this is a pretty strong step."

The filing put Giuliani in the same category as his chief rivals on the Republican side, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, as well as Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and a dozen other presidential wanna-bes.

While mostly a technicality, the Federal Election Commission filing means that Giuliani must now disclose how he is raising and spending campaign cash, although Giuliani has until now filed such information with the FEC voluntarily.

The move seemed mostly aimed at quieting persistent rumors that Giuliani isn't serious about running for President and might eventually pull out - just as he did in his Senate run against Clinton in 2000.

"For activists and donors, it's an important signal," said Dan Schnur, a California-based Republican consultant who worked for McCain in 2000 but is staying out of the 2008 contest.

In some ways, Giuliani has fed those uncertainties by responding more coyly than other candidates when asked by reporters if he is running for President. But yesterday he seemed to send his most explicit signals to date - and also gave conservatives in his party plenty to dislike.

On an appearance with Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes," last night, Giuliani said he supported a woman's right to choose, though he hinted he'd appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court.

He reiterated his support for "reasonable" gun control laws, civil unions for gays, and establishing a way for illegal immigrants to earn citizenship.

"I mean, the reality is you've got to be yourself," Giuliani said when pressed on his conservative credentials.

But most of yesterday was dedicated to instilling a sense of inevitability in a Giuliani run.

Aides to the former mayor acknowledged that some of his opponents were trying to exploit doubts surrounding his candidacy, mostly by convincing big donors that Giuliani wasn't in it for the long haul.

The former mayor recently reported raising $1.4 million through the end of last year - a long way from the $25 million to $30 million that his campaign says it still hopes to raise by March 31.

At the same time, however, Giuliani has moved aggressively in the past few weeks to build a campaign machine and travel the country like any other presidential heavyweight.

He has hired more than 50 operatives and strategists - including the largest Republican polling firm in the country, the Tarrance Group - and dramatically ramped up his fund-raising schedule.

He has stumped through New Hampshire and South Carolina in the past 10 days - two key primary states - and will headline California's state GOP convention this weekend.
 
Article

[Plane]

He reiterated his support for "reasonable" gun control laws,...

I wonder how "reasonable" these laws are going to get?

[Religious Dick]

  City Journal Home.     City Journal
Yes, Rudy Giuliani Is a Conservative
And an electable one, at that.
Steven Malanga
Winter 2007

Not since Teddy Roosevelt took on Tammany Hall a century ago has a New York politician closely linked to urban reform looked like presidential timber. But today ex–New York mayor Rudy Giuliani sits at or near the top of virtually every poll of potential 2008 presidential candidates. Already, Giuliani’s popularity has set off a “stop Rudy” movement among cultural conservatives, who object to his three marriages and his support for abortion rights, gay unions, and curbs on gun ownership. Some social conservatives even dismiss his achievement in reviving New York before 9/11. An August story on the website Right Wing News, for instance, claims that Giuliani governed Gotham from “left of center.” Similarly, conservatives have been feeding the press a misleading collection of quotations by and about Giuliani, on tax policy and school choice issues, assembled to make him look like a liberal.

But in a GOP presidential field in which cultural and religious conservatives may find something to object to in every candidate who could really get nominated (and, more important, elected), Giuliani may be the most conservative candidate on a wide range of issues. Far from being a liberal, he ran New York with a conservative’s priorities: government exists above all to keep people safe in their homes and in the streets, he said, not to redistribute income, run a welfare state, or perform social engineering. The private economy, not government, creates opportunity, he argued; government should just deliver basic services well and then get out of the private sector’s way. He denied that cities and their citizens were victims of vast forces outside their control, and he urged New Yorkers to take personal responsibility for their lives. “Over the last century, millions of people from all over the world have come to New York City,” Giuliani once observed. “They didn’t come here to be taken care of and to be dependent on city government. They came here for the freedom to take care of themselves.” It was that spirit of opportunity and can-do-ism that Giuliani tried to re-instill in New York and that he himself exemplified not only in the hours and weeks after 9/11 but in his heroic and successful effort to bring a dying city back to life.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_1_rudy_giuliani.html

[The_Professor]

However, and speaking as a proud member of the Religious Right, he fails the litmus test.

[Religious Dick]

However, and speaking as a proud member of the Religious Right, he fails the litmus test.

Well, then, it must suck to be you, because it looks like he's not only the favorite as the nominee, he's also the only Republican that out-polls any Democrat in the general.

Either learn to smile when you say "President Rudy", or don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya!

[sirs]

.. it must suck to be you, because it looks like he's not only the favorite as the nominee, he's also the only Republican that out-polls any Democrat in the general.  Either learn to smile when you say "President Rudy", or don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya!

Yo, RD, he has to get past the GOP primaries 1st, just as Hillary needs to in the Dem party.

[Plane]

  Not since Teddy Roosevelt took on Tammany Hall a century ago has a New York politician closely linked to urban reform looked like presidential timber...........a misleading collection of quotations by and about Giuliani, on tax policy and school choice issues, assembled to make him look like a liberal.

A misleading collection of facts?
What, Like ?;

his support for abortion rights, gay unions, and curbs on gun ownership.

VS

This author is rediculous.