Bring It On! Election 2008

Well, well..isn’t this a bunch of bat guano my dear reader. Rudy has hired the fuckwits, aka the brains behind the Harold Ford smear commercial, to run his ad campaign.

Isn’t that friggin special? Oh yeah, for people like us that pay attention, its SO damn disgusting I almost threw up a little in my mouth when I read it a few minutes ago. From the AP writeup:

    WASHINGTON - Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani has a new team of media consultants with a strong record of electing GOP candidates, sometimes using controversial ads.

    The team is led by Heath Thompson and his Dallas-based firm, Scott Howell & Company. Thompson, as director of President Bush’s 2000 campaign in South Carolina, helped Bush to an 11-point victory in that state.

    Last year, a commercial made by Thompson’s firm for Tennessee’s U.S. Senate race was criticized for what the NAACP and others said were racial overtones.

That was THE most underhanded bullshit ad run during the entire campaign last year. And it worked! That fact alone should depress and sicken you. Harold was winning until the Rethugs pulled out their big guns. With Heath Thompson at the helm Rudy is guaranteed to wage an underhanded, no holds barred campaign.

Guess he’s desperate..its the move of a man that either thinks the voting public won’t know or give a damn..or he is desperate enough to win at any cost.

Sort of like George Bush did.

Tags: Heath Thompson, Giuliani, racist,

Rudi Giuliani apparently thinks our next president ought to conduct America’s foreign policy in the same manner he navigated the end of his last marriage…an in your face flaunting of one’s ability to do what one chooses regardless of how it might be perceived and who might get hurt in the process. Perhaps I’m being too harsh…after all…he does have more experience than most.

Never let it be said that Teddy Roosevelt had anything on Rudi Giuliani. The esteemed former mayor turned modern day Rambo apparently believes one should not only carry a big stick…but one ought to loudly and clearly shout out who is scheduled to receive the next clubbing. Perhaps he and Dick Cheney could enjoy spending vacation time together clubbing baby seals?

In the course of a week, Giuliani has offered perhaps the most ill-conceived view on foreign policy since…oh, let’s see…George Bush?! Better still, Giuliani, in his apparent wisdom, has decided to one-up George Bush by arguing that efforts to establish a Palestinian state may have been far too hasty and it may be time to reconsider the need for more preconditions.

From The New York Sun:

“Too much emphasis has been placed on brokering negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians — negotiations that bring up the same issues again and again,” Mayor Giuliani writes in an essay published yesterday in Foreign Affairs. “It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism.”

In some of the boldest language on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict used thus far by any presidential candidate, Mr. Giuliani writes: “Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel.”

That language appears to be a direct shot at President Bush and Secretary of State Rice, who are making just such a push for final status negotiations between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert in September, despite Hamas’s takeover of Gaza in June.

Mr. Giuliani’s senior foreign policy adviser, Charles Hill, said yesterday that the Bush administration’s current push to forge a peace deal between the Palestinian Authority president and the Israeli prime minister may be “risking too much.”

Mr. Hill went further yesterday, saying he does not expect that Mr. Giuliani, if he becomes president, would support Iraqi national elections, scheduled for 2009, if it appeared that they would empower Islamist terrorist parties and others with their own private armies. “We would have to look at the situation at that time,” he said.

Prior to the 2000 presidential election, George Bush told voters that he was opposed to nation building. Over six years later, the President not only favors nation building; he considers it his divinely inspired mission to deliver freedom and democracy to the oppressed peoples of the world.

Reading between the lines of the Giuliani manifesto, this process would be continued, though he seemingly favors a slower implementation of open elections. As I read the Giuliani approach, he would only implement a fully democratic government when he was convinced the decisions of the voting public would meet with his favor. After all, why shouldn’t the exporter of democracy have the prerogative to dictate the type of freedom he wants to install?

Apparently Mr. Giuliani believes such benevolent meddling will be met with thankful acceptance from the recipients. If not, I presume the new and improved “decider” might conclude it’s time to pull out a larger Louisville Slugger and pummel the misguided until such time as they realize what’s good for them.

Good for Giuliani…at least he doesn’t seem apt to make the Cheney mistake of promising us a rose petal parade. His approach seems to be much more measured…I think he’ll be happy with a few strategically placed statues expressing a sufficient level of homage to the liberator.

No doubt Rudi must fashion himself as the law and order candidate. If I didn’t know better, I might conclude that Mr. Giuliani is determined to prove that wearing a skirt should never be seen as a sign of weakness. While that may seem inconsequential, keep in mind that Hillary, his potential opponent, does wear pants.

Given this bold effort to portray a tough guy image, maybe the campaign should adopt a new slogan, “Look out world, there’s a new sheriff in town”. On second thought, that could prove risky…he did spend a lot of time in the Village…people.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

For a number of years, the GOP political strategy has been characterized by a focus upon three prevailing issues that many have chosen to call “God, guns, and gays”. As we approach the 2008 election, there seems to be a growing belief that this effective trifecta is headed for the political trash heap. While I’m not ready to agree with that assumption, I do anticipate they will continue to lose their fail safe luster.

At the same time, I believe we are seeing the makings of a new list of issues which will be featured in the rhetoric of the GOP. Unfortunately, it appears that the underlying motivation for putting such topics front and center will continue to be the invocation of a bogeyman mentality…meaning some group must be established as the bad guys…those people who are jeopardizing our way of life.

Specifically, I expect to see illegal immigrants relegated to this role. Joining them will be Islamic extremists who will be portrayed as intent upon making Iraq the new Afghanistan…a haven for a radical ideology intent on destroying our Western way of life. Completing the triumvirate will be the Iranian government and the threat it poses should it succeed in obtaining nuclear weaponry.

There you have it. I’m predicting that the new GOP strategy will be summarized as, “Iraq and Iran, Islamic extremists, and illegal immigrants…or what I might be so bold as to call the demonization of “brown”.

Let me be clear. I am not suggesting that the GOP leadership is inherently biased or prejudice…or that they endorse across the board cultural condemnation…or that there aren’t legitimate reasons to address these particular issues.

At the same time, I am suggesting that they wouldn’t be opposed to being the benefactor of a strategy that seeks to foment this type of vilification (similar to what we saw in past campaigns with regard to gays) from those who identify themselves as members of the GOP voter constituency.

As I see it, illegal immigrants are about to unseat gays in holding the unfortunate GOP designation as the primary source of decline in America. They are fast becoming the new bogeyman.

A quick look at the remarks of the Republican presidential front-runners seems to support my contention. These candidates are each scrambling to position themselves as the lead proponent of a strong immigration policy and a sustained effort to stamp out Islamic radicalism…positions that seem to have wide appeal to GOP constituents.

From ABC News:

“We can end illegal immigration,” Giuliani vowed to an audience of roughly 300 at a community center in Aiken, S.C., Tuesday morning. “I promise you, we can end illegal immigration.”

Listed as one of his “12 commitments” to the American people, Giuliani promised to secure the borders and identify every noncitizen in the United States, noting the more than 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

“That’s a lot of people to walk over your border without being identified,” he said.

The two-term mayor proposed requiring the deportation of any illegal immigrant who commits a felony, building both a physical and a high-tech border fence, deploying a larger and better-trained border patrol, implementing a tamperproof identity card for all foreign workers and students with a single national database of noncitizens to track their status.

Giuliani these days emphasizes border control and casts immigration as a national security issue in light of Sept. 11.

“Real immigration reform must put security first because border security and homeland security are inseparable in the terrorists’ war on us,” Giuliani has said. “The first responsibility of the federal government is to protect our citizens by controlling America’s borders, while ending illegal immigration and identifying every noncitizen in our nation.”

So we see Giuliani racing to oppose illegal immigration…despite a track record that has clearly been more sympathetic than his campaign rhetoric. Note that the former mayor is doing his best to portray his shift as a reaction to the changing environment with regards to terrorism and border security…a plausible move though one being met with skepticism by his detractors.

The other GOP candidates have targeted Giuliani’s shifting position on immigration in hopes of convincing voters that the former mayor is nothing more than a political opportunist who needs to shed a significant amount of baggage that won’t play well with conservative Republicans.

From The New York Times:

Meanwhile, Mr. Romney has been stepping up his criticism of his opponent. Last week he called New York a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants and said that Mr. Giuliani was too soft on immigration when he was mayor. Mr. Giuliani has rejected those assertions, and is trying to toughen his image on the issue. He has made ending illegal immigration one of his “12 Commitments to the American People.”

And, there’s every indication that the former mayor will continue to face questions about his positions, past and present, and not only from Mr. Romney. Just yesterday, former Senator Fred Thompson, who is expected to jump into the presidential race soon, posted an entry on his blog calling New York a “sanctuary city.”

Then there is Giuliani’s lengthy piece at www.foreingaffairs.org in which he frames the war on terror as the emergence of the 9/11 generation…comparing it to the cold war as he attempts to link his noteworthy performance following the attack on New York City with the need for a protracted effort to extinguish a growing ideology of Islamic extremism.

We are all members of the 9/11 generation.

The defining challenges of the twentieth century ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Full recognition of the first great challenge of the twenty-first century came with the attacks of September 11, 2001, even though Islamist terrorists had begun their assault on world order decades before. Confronted with an act of war on American soil, our old assumptions about conflict between nation-states fell away. Civilization itself, and the international system, had come under attack by a ruthless and radical Islamist enemy.

But this war will be long, and we are still in its early stages. Much like at the beginning of the Cold War, we are at the dawn of a new era in global affairs, when old ideas have to be rethought and new ideas have to be devised to meet new challenges.

After the attacks of 9/11, President Bush put America on the offensive against terrorists, orchestrating the most fundamental change in U.S. strategy since President Harry Truman reoriented American foreign and defense policy at the outset of the Cold War. […]

The 9/11 generation has learned from the history of the twentieth century that America must not turn a blind eye to gathering storms. […]

In recent years, the GOP has sought to paint the Democrats as soft on defense and sympathetic to our adversaries…if not outright unpatriotic. At the same time, they accuse the Democrats of lacking optimism in the ability of America to achieve what she sets as her goals…meaning Democrats are down on America, if you will. In broad terms, Democrats typically start with self-reflection…an inward review that is then followed by looking to outward factors or causal influences…a process that allows Republicans to highlight the alleged negativity of Democrats.

Recall how the Republican’s linked John Kerry to France, made an issue of his testimony following his return from Vietnam, and ridiculed his plan for fighting terrorism as an insufficient law enforcement approach…making him out to be an apologist for our enemies and all things anti-American.

On the other hand, the GOP is careful to avoid any self-criticism of this country…and they’ve been successful in framing their arguments in this manner…meaning America can do no wrong, if you will. They still incorporate negativity into their strategy…but it is directed outward towards other nations or groups they define to be enemies of our established American ideals.

In effect, the difference between the GOP and the Democrats is that the GOP is averse to confronting America’s problems with a requirement for national self-reflection…meaning a process of looking inward. They make a concerted effort to identify outward influences (other nations, etc) as the source of our problems. Looking at what America may have done wrong isn’t generally part of their equation.

Its the very mechanism that allows many GOP voters to support tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in the midst of huge war debts while also objecting to federal measures to fund health care or needed improvements to infrastructure. That brings us back to the alphabet.

As I thought about this shift from the three “G’s” to the three “I’s”, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was any particular reason for the Republican’s to have skipped the “H’s”. Perhaps the fact that the Democrats had already adopted health care and scrutinized the amount of authority given to those responsible for homeland security may have led them to concede the questioning and self-examining consonant in favor of the more forceful and self-serving vowel?

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

Good ol’ Mitt Romney was feeling feisty again and ripped Rudi Giuliani for turning New York into a cesspoll of “illegal” workers during his reign as mayor.

“If you look at lists compiled on Web sites of sanctuary cities, New York is at the top of the list when Mayor Giuliani was mayor,” Romney said at while campaigning in Iowa. “He instructed city workers not to provide information to the federal government that would allow them to enforce the law. New York City was the poster child for sanctuary cities in the country.”

Well I’m not much of a Giuliani fan, but lets see. His city’s economy boomed. Crime went way down. The city cleaned up and became a thriving tourist destination again AND he is one of the most popular Mayors in city history. Maybe Rudi was onto something with his immigration attitude….