Rudolph Giuliani

On a recent weekday afternoon, a handful of policy wonks sat in a corner office adorned with maps and books in the Vanderbilt Street headquarters of the Manhattan Institute discussing a political opportunity presented by the current financial crisis.

“We feel that the moment is here,” said Steve Malanga, an economic policy expert at the Institute.

After losing the presidency and both houses of Congress for the first time in 15 years, Republicans are scrambling to find something different. Different is the Manhattan Institute’s specialty.

Socially eclectic, fiscally conservative and proudly contrarian, the institute is home to people like Myron Magnet, who wears mutton chops and capes and carries gold-knobbed canes, and fellow sartorial pioneer Tom Wolfe, who, while not a member, considers himself the institute’s biggest fan and unofficial biographer.  read more »

Last week, another element of Mayor Bloomberg's plan for sustainable transportation was dealt a significant, but by no means fatal setback. A federal judge blocked implementation of the requirement that all of the City's cabs be powered by hybrid engines. According to The New York Times' Sewell Chan: "In his ruling, Judge Crotty, who was the city's corporation counsel from 1994 to 1997, under Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, agreed to block the city from enforcing the rule because the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their key legal argument - that the new regulations were pre-empted under federal law, which reserve regulation of fuel economy and emissions standards to federal agencies.  read more »

At the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Rudy Giuliani set the tone for Governor Sarah Palin and the sharp, well-delivered attack speech that brought her to national prominence. Then, last night, after a poor stretch for Palin highlighted by embarrassing interview performances, Giuliani was back to confidently herald Palin’s return to form.

“I mean, this was a fabulous performance,” said Giuliani, walking at a two-step-per-minute rate with his wife, Judith, in a frenzied scrum of reporters in the media center at Washington University in St. Louis on Oct. 2. “She displayed tremendous intelligence, she displayed total grasp of the issues, and she did a very effective job of attacking Joe Biden and Barack Obama with a lot of style and a lot of grace.  read more »

John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin disagree on at least one thing: the importance of community organizers.

“Of course I respect community organizers,” said McCain, responding to a question about whether he agreed with the evisceration of community organizers at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. (During the convention, Palin and former mayor Rudy Giuliani, among others, mocked the community organizer job, which Obama had after law school, as meaningless and without real responsibility.)

Speaking during a forum about service tonight at Columbia University, McCain added, “And Senator Obama’s record in that area is outstanding.”

McCain also blamed the poisonous tone of the presidential debate on Senator Obama’s decision not to accept his invitation to appear in town hall meetings together around the country, which he suggested would have gone a long way in keeping things civil.  read more »

You may not see much today of Bernard Kerik, the former NYPD Commissioner who was on duty during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but he is staying busy.

I spoke with him by phone yesterday as he was planting 23 flags outside his home to commemorate each of the police officers he lost that day. He said he was going to a funeral for a New Jersey police officer who worked with his son and would be coming to New York City for interviews later in the day.

He declined to speak publicly about politics or his former boss, Rudy Giuliani, which he said was out of respect for those who are mourning today.  read more »

In two separate speeches yesterday, Rudy Giuliani lauded the virtues of Sarah Palin’s small-town executive experience.

During an address to the New York delegation at the Marriott hotel in Minneapolis, he said “Sorry Senator [Obama], if the city is not big enough for you--they are probably that group of people who cling to religion and guns.”

And during his keynote address to introduce Sarah Palin at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul later that evening, he said “I’m sorry Barack Obama doesn’t feel her hometown is,” he paused, “cosmopolitan enough.”

But during his own run for president, the size of the city apparently mattered to Giuliani.  read more »

Yesterday, Republicans, seemingly at once, started attacking Barack Obama's experience as a community organizer.

"What in God's name is a community organizer?" asked George Pataki at a breakfast.

"What do they do?" Giuliani implored during his speech last night.

And Sarah Palin, in her enthusiastic address, said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

So community organizers are now organizing themselves.

John Raskin of the West Side of Manhattan, founder of Community Organizers of America, has already launched a Web site (Community Organizers Fight Back) demanding that Palin apologize.

Of course, they're not exactly the target demographic for Republicans, especially in New York.  read more »

ST. PAUL--For much of Wednesday night, the delegates on the floor of the Republican National Convention had to make the most of the tiny rations of red meat offered to them by the speakers on stage.

They happily chanted “drill baby drill” with former Senate candidate Michael Steele, but few jumped out of their seats. They applauded approvingly at Mike Huckabee’s zinger that Sarah Palin “got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States,” but they seemed a bit mystified with how his long anecdote about school desks connected to John McCain and military service.  read more »

Ad libbing as he warmed up the Republican convention crowd for their vice presidential nominee, Rudolph Giuliani quipped: “She got an 80 percent approval rating. You don’t get those kinds of numbers in New York!”

Of course, getting those numbers would be just as easy for a New York mayor or any other mayor or governor if they were able – like the charming hockey mom -- to send $1200 to every man, woman and child in their jurisdiction thanks to a windfall profits tax on the oil industry.

But wait a second. Didn’t Rudy tell us that she had reduced taxes and cut government spending?

Actually, for all her boilerplate conservative rhetoric about the wonders of freedom and the evils of taxation and government, her career reflects a penchant for raising taxes and redistributing wealth.  read more »

ST. PAUL—Rudy Giuliani will finally deliver his keynote address tonight, marking his most high profile role in electoral politics since his own ill-fated presidential run.

The Giuliani campaign was done in by a variety of factors, not least among them a flawed strategy that put all its eggs in a Florida basket, an ability to assuage conservative concerns about his liberal positions on social issues, his unorthodox personal history, as well as this and this and this and this.

But the real death-blow to Giuliani’s campaign was arguably his association with Bernie Kerik, who Giuliani vouched for to be Secretary of Homeland Security, and who was later  read more »

The main strategic knock on the last night's primetime G.O.P. convention session was its decided lack of red meat-attacks on Barack Obama. Instead, the evening was given over to building John McCain's biography and to framing his campaign as a principled crusade that rises above partisan politics.

Good enough, but with Sarah Palin slated to speak tonight and John McCain on tap for tomorrow night, when will the Republicans showcase the kind of bare-knuckled (and highly effective) attacks on Obama that they directed at John Kerry in New York four years ago?

A look at tonight's schedule and the some of the speech excerpts pre-released this afternoon suggests they will try to kill two birds with one stone this evening.  read more »

MINNEAPOLIS--Both former mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Governor George Pataki had words for Joe Biden at today’s New York delegation lunch.

Giuliani said that Biden’s proposal to devolve Iraq into three separate regions meant that he was “totally oblivious to what that has done to Pakistan and India.”

He then mocked Biden’s gregarious nature: “Joe has a great deal of experience talking, talking, talking.”

Pataki derided Barack Obama’s message of change by saying that, for vice president, Obama “picks Beltway Joe, who has been in Washington for a few hundred years.” He said that the way to achieve reform was to "appoint someone like Governor Palin.”

On a separate note, Pataki, who has been invisible since leaving office and abandoning notions of a bid for national office, declared himself in the game again.

“I’m back,” he said. “I’m getting involved.”

MINNEAPOLIS—In what may be a preview of his keynote speech tonight to the Republican National Convention, Rudy Giuliani spoke to the New York Republican delegation at a downtown Marriott this afternoon and attacked Barack Obama on matters of national security and experience.

“At the top of the ticket they have someone who is the least experienced candidate for president in 100 years,” said Giuliani.

Speaking about the war in Iraq and the surge, he said, “I can’t figure out for the life of me how the Democrats think it’s a mistake.” He suggested that the Democrats supported dictatorships.

“Do they want Saddam Hussein back?” he asked.  read more »

ST. PAUL—“Nice place out here,” said Rudy Giuliani.

The former mayor and his wife, Judith, had just arrived at a private party—re-purposed as a benefit for Hurricane Gustav relief—thrown in his honor on the terrace of an upscale restaurant in downtown Minnesota a few hours after the opening of the Republican National Convention.

Waitresses in thigh-baring skirts passed around buckets of Möet and trays of chocolate to senators and congressmen and supporters, who lounged on red-cushioned couches, unwrapped their complimentary cigar clippers and admired the view of the city’s bustling Hennepin Avenue. Mr. Giuliani’s longtime security detail and his usual coterie of former deputy mayors, including Peter Powers and Tony  read more »

In an email from the New York delegation:

“[We] will hold a luncheon at the Marriott City Center at 30 South 7th Street in Minneapolis, MN tomorrow, Wednesday September 3 beginning at 2:00 pm.

"The keynote speaker will be Rudy Giuliani. Additional speakers will include Governor George Pataki, Brigadier General Jon Reynolds, Dr. John Lehman, Governor Jane Swift and Congressman Luis Fortuno.

"Members of the media are invited to attend."

Which should relieve Representative Peter King somewhat of the responsibility of providing quotes to all the New York reporters covering the delegation.

ST. PAUL—Representative Pete King of New York thinks that Rudy Giuliani’s convention address, whenever it happens, and whatever else it accomplishes, is good for the former mayor.

“On one level it’s a real tribute to Rudy,” King said yesterday as he stood on the convention floor in the Xcel Energy Center with the New York delegation. “It shows the underlying support he has not just in the party but reaching out to independents around the country. This is an opportunity to really show what he can do. John McCain understands that to win you have to appeal to independents.”

Asked what the speech does for Giuliani, King said, “It reaffirms his standing in New York, that’s for sure.  read more »

Last night, Rudy Giuliani confirmed that he would still be delivering the Convention's keynote address, originally scheduled for today

"I’ll be speaking but I’m not sure exactly when," Giuliani told me.

As we reported earlier, a source close to Giuliani said he'd probably be speaking on Wednesday.

ST. PAUL--Rudy Giuliani is in town, but due to Gustav-related delays, he won't be speaking at the convention tomorrow, according to sources close to the former mayor. He will be speaking at some point, most likely Wednesday, according to the sources.

Former Bush pioneer and Republican fund-raiser Barron Thomas says that the usually luxurious parties at the Republican National Convention “are severely on hold” as attention seems to be turning towards fund-raising for potential victims of Hurricane Gustav.

“I think the idea is to send a lot of that money down to New Orleans,” said Thomas, who is set to arrive later in the week.

On the positive side, Thomas, an Arizona fund-raiser who has been critical of John McCain in the past and was a strong supporter of Rudy Giuliani, said that his phone has not stopped ringing since the announcement of Sarah Palin as McCain’s choice for Vice President.  read more »

A reader sends over part of an interview Monocle magazine conducted with Sarah Palin, John McCain's newly minted running mate, in October of last year, when Rudy Giuliani was rumored to be considering her as V.P. (So much for that!)

Here are some excerpts [story is subscription only]:

Monocle: You must have heard the recent gossip that Rudy Giuliani, if he emerges as Republican nominee for President next year, might ask you to be his running mate. Would you consider it?

Sarah Palin: I think it is so far in outer space, the possibility that he would ever want a hockey mum from Wasilla to be his running mate, that I haven't considered it.

 read more »

Rudy Giuliani is not the first person many conservatives would have picked to deliver the keynote address at the Republican convention later this month, but given the uphill battle many of them see John McCain facing in November, it appears to be a choice they can live with.

"Maybe in other years I'd be more picky about it," said Gary Bauer, an evangelical leader who is an informal adviser to the McCain campaign. Citing Republican fatigue and a severely sluggish economy, Bauer said, "People understand that this is a tough year and that Rudy Giuliani is admired nationally for both his success as New York mayor but also his performance after 9/11.  read more »

If Rudy Giuliani were a Democrat, we might now be talking about his bright future on the national political stage. For whatever reason, the keynote speaking slot at the Democratic convention has evolved to serve as an unveiling of one of the party's rising or underexposed political talents. Mario Cuomo, Evan Bayh, Harold Ford and some guy named Barack Obama are all recent alumni.

But the Republican keynote slot that Giuliani was selected for on Wednesday to fill has a different pedigree. G.O.P. keynoters tend either to be established political stars -- like Colin Powell in 2000 -- or to be less obviously ambitious politicians chosen because they have specific attributes that (in theory, anyway) will help with the party's general election imperatives.  read more »

The McCain campaign just held a conference call with Rudy Giuliani--recently named the Republican National Convention keynote speaker-- ostensibly to talk about an reported meeting between an Obama adviser, Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, and Syrian government officials.

It didn't go so well.

At one point during the call, Giuliani seemed to suggest that McCain would be open to picking a pro-choice running mate. A follow-up questioner was subsequently cut off by the McCain campaign.

Earlier in the call, a reporter asking Giuliani about his own association with hostile foreign entities seemed to disappear, mid-query, from the call entirely. (The reporter subsequently said that he was dropped.  read more »

A keynote address by Rudy Giuliani at the Republican National Convention signals John McCain's commitment to winning the moderate and independent voters, according to a former senior adviser to Giuliani.

"The battleground is always in the middle, it's not the party regulars on the left or the right but smack dab in the center," said the adviser, speaking on background. "Yes, Rudy will help with the independents, but he'll also rally the troops by his ability to get the convention rocking and rolling."

The adviser noted that Giuliani, while moderate on social positions, was a favorite of the conservative tax group The Club for Growth.  read more »

Barry Wynn, an important Rudy Giuliani supporter and former Bush campaign finance chair from South Carolina, thinks that Giuliani's selection as the Republican National Convention's keynote speaker is more the result of a close relationship with John McCain than a desire to reach out to independent voters.

"It just says that John McCain's his own guy and beats to his own drum," said Wynn. "They have been friends for 20 years and somebody is not going to tell John McCain not to have one of his longstanding best friends, who does have a star quality, not to be the keynote speaker. As far as whether it is orchestrated to appeal to a certain group or not, I just don't think that's the case.  read more »

The AP reports that Rudy Giuliani will give the keynote at the Republican National Convention next month. In addition to the fact that Giuliani has been a strong supporter of McCain since his own primary campaign fizzled, McCain is close with top Giuliani aide Tony Carbonetti, who has been accompanying the presumed nominee on many of his campaign stops.

Paris Hilton has filmed a mock campaign ad responding to John McCain's references to her in his latest campaign ad. In it, she calls the Republican candidate "the oldest celebrity in the world. [NY Daily News]

Writer Jay McInerney says John Edwards's reported mistress, Rielle Hunter, is "a nice girl"; she was the inspiration for the character of Alison Poole in Mr. McInerney's 1988 novel Story of My Life. [P6]  read more »

An adviser to Tom Golisano--who said Golisano is willing to spend at least $5 million on State Senate races this year--is taking the news that Rudy Giuliani is launching a P.A.C. in stride. (The former mayor's fund-raising committee will contribute mainly to State Senate Republicans, who would like to maintain their very narrow majority.)

“Clearly it’s his right to do what he believes and I think this will be quite a critical election,” Golisano adviser Steve Pigeon told me. “I think there will be some candidates we support in common and others we don’t.  But he [Giuliani] clearly has a right to do it.  read more »

These pre-pre election polls have limited significance for any actual contest, but according to this poll from Siena, Michael Bloomberg is benefiting from his continued popularity as mayor, beating both David Paterson and Andrew Cuomo in a hypothetical gubernatorial election.

Here are some other interesting bits:

Paterson wins over Andrew Cuomo among upstate Democratic voters, 51-28.

Rudy Giuliani beats Bloomberg among Jewish Republican voters, 80-20.

Bloomberg beats Paterson among independent voters, 62-26.

And Giuliani edges Paterson among upstate voters, 43-42.

The poll was conducted by phone between July 7 and 10 and included responses from 626 registered voters.

Every four years, involving one party or the other, it seems that we get a batch of stories just like today’s Washington Post write-up on a possible platform fight between John McCain and the G.O.P.’s right wing.

It’s almost always much ado about nothing. Tension between the nominee of either party – who is interested in projecting a moderate, inclusive image to the general-election audience – and that nominee’s red-meat-hungry party base are inevitable. But party platforms themselves do not influence mass opinion – the pictures and sounds that come out of the convention do.  read more »

Here's video from Rudy Giuliani's brief appearance at the Kings County Republican Committee’s annual fund-raiser last night, where he paid tribute to his former community assistance commissioner, Rosemarie O’Keefe.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else tonight,” Giuliani told the audience, which gave him a warm, though not particularly impassioned, welcome. “We met in 1989 and she worked very, very hard to get me elected in 1989, [and] we didn’t succeed, but we became very good friends,” he said.

Giuliani spoke for about eight minutes, praising O’Keefe’s work with families of 9/11 victims and her efforts to build the Republican Party. He made no mention of the presidential race, nor of his plans for the future.  read more »

Rudy Giuliani and his top aide, Anthony Carbonetti met with the New York State Republican Chairman Joe Mondello last week for a little chat about state politics. The meeting took place at the office of Giuliani Partners, at the invitation of Giuliani, according to Carbonetti.

I asked him if the subject of Giuliani for governor came up, since it's been the subject of some recent speculation.  

"Of course it did," Carbonetti confirmed during a telephone interview yesterday. "But Rudy was like, 'Lets worry about getting through this cycle.'"

Mr. Carbonetti continued: "Joe said, 'I'm with you if you want to run.' You know, the usual stuff.  read more »

Rudy Giuliani is back in the presidential fray, weighing in as a surrogate for John McCain on today's back-and-forth between McCain and Barack Obama on national security.

Here's the Giuliani statement sent out by the McCain campaign:

"Throughout this campaign, I have been very concerned that the Democrats want to take a step back to the failed policies that treated terrorism solely as a law enforcement matter rather than a clear and present danger. Barack Obama appears to believe that terrorists should be treated like criminals -- a belief that underscores his fundamental lack of judgment regarding our national security. In a post 9/11 world, we need to remain on offense against the terrorist threat which seeks to destroy our very way of life. We need a leader like John McCain who has the experience and judgment necessary to protect the American people."

Paging Joe Biden?

When voters in a new Quinnipiac poll out today were asked who they’d like to elect as governor in 2010, Michael Bloomberg came out on top, slightly edging out Rudy Giuliani.

The survey gave respondents four choices: Bloomberg, Giuliani, David Paterson and Andrew Cuomo.

Paterson, who enjoys a 67-20 approval rating according to this poll, came in third.

Here are the numbers:  read more »

The speculation that Rudy Giuliani might try to run for governor in 2010 has one of his earliest supporters pretty excited.  read more »

After he spoke to a room full of Republicans at a fund-raiser--attended by heavyweights like Rudy Giuliani and Dick Cheney--in Midtown last night, I asked Joe Bruno why he didn’t mention same-sex marriage in his address.  read more »

Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani are among the special guests headlining the New York State Republican Committee annual dinner, which is taking place at 6 p.m. next Thursday at the Sheraton in Midtown.

In a public statement announcing the event, State Chairman Joe Mondello said:  read more »

Back in June 2007, Rudy Giuliani addressed the question of whether he, as a pro-choice Catholic politician, was fit to receive communion by saying, "Issues like that for me are between me and my confessor. I'm a Catholic and that's the way I resolve those issues, personally and privately."

Today, Cardinal Edward Egan of New York, Giuliani's own bishop, essentially said that the former mayor, with his "well-known support" for abortion rights, forfeited his right to call the matter private by publicly accepting Holy Communion during a papal Mass this month.

Cardinal Egan’s scolding, in which he said he "deeply regrets" Giuliani's decision, is a result of what the prelate suggested was a violation of "an understanding" with the former candidate for the Republican nomination and the church, which Egan said teaches "that abortion is a grave offense against the will of God."  read more »

How much credit does Michael Bloomberg deserve for the relative calm that’s followed the Sean Bell verdict? It’s a question that’s more than just academic, given the potential for racially fraught episodes just like this one to have a defining impact on a mayoral legacy – and on a mayor’s political fortunes moving forward.

According to veteran New York political reporter Andrew Kirtzman, who I emailed for his take on the question, Bloomberg has been more lucky than skillful in presiding over what has been, so far, a restrained fallout.

Here’s Kirtzman’s take, from early this weekend:  read more »

Michael Bloomberg, introducing John McCain before a speech in Bay Ridge on the economy, just said, "I got elected because of you."

New Yorkers have high expectations for David Paterson, a new Quinnipiac poll shows, with 75 percent believing that he will govern effectively, 46 percent holding a favorable opinion, and only 3 percent having an unfavorable opinion. (The data was collected between March 16 and 18, and one pollster is quoted as saying opinions shifted slightly after news broke of his affairs).

The poll also shows that, given four choices, New Yorkers overall like Michael Bloomberg for the next governor. He earned 29 percent to Paterson’s 27 percent, although Paterson leads Bloomberg among Democrats. Andrew Cuomo was in fourth place, with 11 percent. The third most favored choice was Rudy Giuliani, who took first place with Republican voters.

Here's the release:  read more »

A Siena poll released this morning shows that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would win New York State over John McCain in a hypothetical general election, but only by seven points (Clinton 49-42, Obama 47-40). A Siena spokesman says the state has gone from “solidly blue” in the last five elections to “showing streaks of purple.”

Of course, McCain is a much more moder