Keystone State GOP Fails to See Danger in Giuliani Nomination
I recently read the a Strategic Vision poll showing 42% of Pennsylvania Republicans supporting Rudy Giuliani for the 2008 nomination. If that isn’t depressing enough, last month a small but influential group of Pennsylvania Republican State Committee officials voted Giuliani as their favorite in a non-binding “straw poll” at their summer State Committee meeting.
Republicans in Pennsylvania and across the nation should overwhelmingly decline to nominate the man that the June issue of Reason magazine called the “least trustworthy” in either party to hold presidential powers. This is especially true at a time when America needs a President who will do the right thing by reining in the overreaching executive power in Washington today.
I cannot imagine Giuliani—a pro-choice, anti-gun liberal—winning the nomination. He will tear the party apart, distort the meaning of what it is to be a Republican and a conservative, and govern with an iron fist. Worse yet, Giuliani proclaimed in the June CNN presidential debate that he seeks to expand the failed doctrine of nation building.
How can any serious voter consider casting a ballot in favor of any candidate who has endorsed a strategy that has been proven to be failed doctrine? Reason.com reports that in a speech at The Citadel in May, candidate Giuliani stated that “this idea of nation-building is not one you want to undertake lightly. But whether we wanted to or not, it’s now our responsibility. We’ve got to get it done right.”
In the June CNN Republican debate, he unequivocally endorsed nation building when he said that “We have great resources in this country. And watching the strength of America when we believe in the essential ideals that we have — they’re not just American ideals; they come from God. And I think it’s our moral obligation to find the right way to share that with the rest of the world.”
Giuliani is not a conservative and not a Republican—he is a neo-Wilsonian, big government liberal who believes in using the power of a large, powerful government to get the results that he wants. Nation building does not work. We are trying it—and failing at it right now in Mesopotamia. Giuliani has somehow come to the conclusion that it is our mission to bring American values to the Middle East even if our own national interest does not require such action.
Pennsylvania Republicans, and conservatives around the nation, ought to closely examine the Giuliani record: as mayor he micromanaged the entire city government to the point of erecting a bunker in City Hall, making the seat of New York’s government into a fortress, and bragging that he “was the police commissioner.” He even touted the fact that he had final say on the promotion of detectives at the precinct level.
Giuliani spent eight years vindictively attacking his opponents for disagreeing with his authoritarian style. Former Mayor Ed Koch, in his book
Giuliani: Nasty Man, details several of Giuliani’s most egregious examples of mismanagement and malice.
According to Koch, the Mayor forced out Police Chief Bill Bratton, the man largely responsible for the policing strategies that reduced the city’s crime rate. His reason? Bratton was getting too much credit. After Bratton made the front cover of Time, Rudy ordered that Bratton fire his press secretary for arranging the interview and not inviting the Mayor! As Mayor of Gotham he harassed his own school chancellor because he got better media coverage than Giuliani for working to improve city school test scores. The result? The capable and effective Chancellor Ray Cortines left town.
Worst of all, Mayor Giuliani replaced the merit judicial selection system with a Rudy-take-all scheme that allowed him to ignore the tradition followed for almost 16 years of choosing judicial nominees from a bipartisan Bar Association panel’s recommendation of three top choices. According to the New York Times, one Giuliani nominee, Robert Torres, flunked out of law school twice and never earned a law degree. Torres is now Judge Torres thanks to Giuliani.
Giuliani would be a disaster as president and a nightmare as the Republican nominee. I for one will not support him or vote for him. He will expand executive powers, attempt to trample his opponents, likely ignore civil liberties as he did as mayor, insist on the failed policy of nation building, and micromanage the nation.
Republicans, especially my fellow Pennsylvania Republicans, still have time to reconsider.
The solution is that Rudy Giuliani should do the GOP and the nation a favor by withdrawing from the race and saving us from his potential presidency—a crisis the republic does not deserve to endure.
Nathan Shrader is an elected Republican Committeeman in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at nathan@bullmoosepartners.com
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