Wayne Besen - Author, Activist, Columnist, Public Speaker

Monday, November 12, 2007

Rudy Sells Out By Appealing To Republican Base

When Rudy Giuliani lived with a gay couple during the separation from his wife, he reportedly told the pair he would marry them if he had the chance. Now, that he working to get the Republican nomination, he needs the bigot vote, so he is going back on his word. Likewise, he used to praise immigrants - and all of us New Yorkers know they are largely responsible for revitalizing the stagnating city in the 80's and 90's. However, they have come under fire from the ambitious Republican front runner. According to today's Washington Post:

As Mayor of New York in the 1990s, when undocumented immigrants were pouring into the city, Rudolph W. Giuliani extolled their contributions to the Big Apple's burgeoning economy, forbade city workers from denying them social services and benefits, bent over backward to help them navigate the path toward citizenship, and grasped the plain fact that they would never be deported en masse. As the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. Giuliani has gradually purged such ideas from his campaign rhetoric, stressing instead his plans to erect a "technological fence" to secure the nation's borders, end illegal immigration, and monitor the comings and goings of "every noncitizen" in the country by means of tamper-proof, biometrically savvy ID cards.

The fact is, the Republican base is such a despicable batch of haters, fear-mongers, hypocrites and conspiracy theorists that once reasonable men have to play dumb to get the nomination. It is time that people stop courting this grotesque constituency that distorts our politics and hinders intelligent public policy.

13 Comments:

Agreed, Wayne, but Hillary/Obama/Edwards though more palatable are not that different. In the end all of them, excepting Kucinich and Gravel, are whores. Mitt being the most outrageous of the entire pack of candidates.
posted by Anonymous, at 11/12/2007 10:36 AM

Wayne said: "The fact is, the Republican base is such a despicable batch of haters, fear-mongers, hypocrites and conspiracy theorists that once reasonable men have to play dumb to get the nomination."

AMEN! You said it perfectly, Wayne!

On a related note, what the G.O.P. is doing to the illegals is truly disgusting. The business community needed cheap labor, so the people who would eventually use them for what they could get out of them knowingly closed their eyes and said nothing while illegals crossed the Mexican-American border by the millions.

Fast forward to the year 2007: NOW that the gardening, construction and hospitality services have been done on the cheap, republicans are suddenly sick of brown people! So now that cheap political points can be scored by bashing them, they decide to treat them like garbage by making them the fall guy in this upcoming election. They used these people and advanced off the sweat of their backs and now they have no use for them anymore so they want to throw them away.
posted by Anonymous, at 11/12/2007 10:59 AM

Richard, I've been saying that about the three front runners for a long time. None are getting my vote all the time they kow-tow to the corporate and military complex. How can any of them support universal health care using an insurance company? That's the problem with health care today, insurance companies dictating who gets health care and who doesn't. Abominable! Kucinich already has a sound plan, by expanding medicare and refining it to cover all. Its worked very well for decades and it wouldn't take much to cover everyone.

On equality issues, none of them really believe in it. If they did, marriage equality wouldn't be such an issue and one that they're uncomfortable with at that. They're afraid of offending the bigots among their religious constituents who outnumber us. It is so transparent. They're disgusting, a bunch of spineless, gutless moderate conservatives dressed in democratic clothing.
posted by Anonymous, at 11/12/2007 2:57 PM

Just wondering outloud here: did Abraham Lincoln have to make pronouncements he didn't believe in to get elected? I am aware as former VP Dan Quayle was told that he was no Jack Kennedy, likewise none of the candidates today are Abe Lincolns by any stretch of the imagination! And maybe that's the problem. We don't have pols who are or become bigger than life once in the White House (Truman comes to mind of the latter category). Perhaps Kennedy, FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Lincoln come to mind when we look for inspiration from our pols. Where are those inspiring types when we need them most? Too busy perhaps attaining Nobel Prizes (Gore) or disillusioned by lies he had to defend(Colin Powell).
posted by Anonymous, at 11/13/2007 7:50 AM

True conservatives like Barry Goldwater are probably spinning in their graves at what their republican party has degenerated into.
posted by Anonymous, at 11/13/2007 4:29 PM

Agreed. But worse than what the Republican party has become is the fact that they keep winning elections. Go figure.
posted by Anonymous, at 11/14/2007 12:34 PM

And there's a reason, Chris, why they win elections: they know how to play the game even with minority support. Example: the attack on Kerry over his Purple Heart and his service in Vietnam - - - which he did not respond to until the damage was done! The Republican party was able to convince a huge part of the population that Kerry was a no good bum despite his service in the military in comparison to the cocaine, drink riddled born again candidate, who did not show up for military service!!! Kerry with Purple Heart and many military decorations; Bush with none of the above. How fucked up was that? You have to admit that they are very clever at winning elections because they know how to deceive,cheat and camouflage the truth better than the opposition! And a good portion of the US population is stupid enough to believe it.
posted by Anonymous, at 11/15/2007 7:41 AM