Rudy Giuliani Speaks To Club For Growth, Part I

Rudy has released the videos of his speech at the Club for Growth Annual Winter Conference. It shows Rudy has strong grasp on the economic issues of our time. Here are many great quotes but here is my favorite: "What I am for is Freedom. More Freedom for people here at home, more freedom for people aboard. More security for us which yields more freedom. A lowering of the burdens of government and I think we are on the same page. So I invite you to support me." -Rudy

Rudy Giuliani Speaks To Club For Growth, Part II

Rudy has released the videos of his speech at the Club for Growth Annual Winter Conference. It shows Rudy has strong grasp on the economic issues of our time. Here are many great quotes but here is my favorite: "What I am for is Freedom. More Freedom for people here at home, more freedom for people aboard. More security for us which yields more freedom. A lowering of the burdens of government and I think we are on the same page. So I invite you to support me." -Rudy

Reason-Be Afraid of President McCain

The Libertarian Magazine of record, Reason, mercilessly attacked McCain as an authoritarian maverick. Here is the editorial (Reason). Here is my favorite part:

The significance of the McCain Plan transcended horse-race politics. It was a microcosm of the Arizona senator’s largely unexamined philosophy about the proper role of the U.S. government. Like almost every past McCain crusade, from fining Big Tobacco to drug-testing athletes to restricting political speech in the name of campaign finance reform, the surge involved an increase in the power of the federal government, particularly in the executive branch. Like many of his reform measures—identifying weapons pork, eliminating congressional airport perks, even banning torture—the escalation had as much to do with appearances (in this case, the appearance of continuing to project U.S. military strength rather than accept “defeat”) as it did with reality. And like the reputation-making actions of his heroes, including his father, his grandfather, and his political idol Teddy Roosevelt, the new Iraq strategy required yet another expansion of American military power to address what is, at least in part, a nonmilitary problem.

Rudy the Catholic

Yesterday Rudy was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt and one of the major issues brought up was Rudy's Catholic faith. I found this in particular interest as a devout Roman Catholic. Now to my knowledge Rudy cannot receive Communion because he did not get his 2nd marriage annulled. Still it seems like Rudy still keeps his Catholic faith close to his heart and it has profoundly effected him though the years. Here is an except

HH: Okay, and Brother O’Leary shows up in some of the stories I find. Who’s he?
RG: Brother Kevin…
HH: Yeah.
RG: That’s how I knew him as. Brother Kevin was a very, very big influence on my life, and he was an English, he was my English teacher and my homeroom teacher in the second year of high school, and he’s the one who really got me interested in reading, in opera, in writing, and sort of convinced me that there was a whole intellectual side of me that I could develop. And I really credit him with that. I mean, he and my mother, my mother was a frustrated history teacher. She always wanted to be a history teacher, and she came through the Depression, and she wasn’t able to go to college, she had to go to work, but she had a great interest in history, and in
English. So I became her singular student. And the two of them probably developed, the two of them probably developed this tremendous interest in learning and reading, and the excitement of it that to this day that I have.

HH: And was Rudy Giuliani ever an altar boy?
RG: No.
HH: Okay, just checking on it.
RG: I was a very, I was a very religious kid, and wanted to be a priest for a good deal of my childhood. My real ambitions as a youngster were being a priest, or being a doctor. Those were the two things I went back and forth with during most of my childhood, and then a whole bunch of other ambitions came about, and different things to do, and I was on the verge of going in the seminary when I graduated from high school, changed my mind that summer, and then ended up going to Manhattan College.
HH: What changed your mind?
RG: I think celibacy, to tell you the truth.
HH: Ah, good argument.
RG: At least initially.
HH: Now how is the Catholic faith imprinted itself on you?
RG: Oh, I’m very, very grateful that I…you know, I studied religion through the time I was in college. I took four years of theology in college. At various times in college, I actually thought again about going back into the seminary, almost did at one point in my second or third year, I don’t remember exactly when. It’s been a very, very important part of my life.
HH: Now President Bush won the Catholic vote, the Mass attending Catholic vote in 2004, over Catholic John Kerry, largely on abortion rights stuff, Mayor. Can you keep that majority, given your abortion rights positions?
RG: Well, I hope that people look at the overall record. You know, they look at the overall record, and realize that there’s not ever going to be agreement 100% with anybody that’s running for president. There are going to be issues you agree on, issues you don’t agree on, and then you as the voter have to make the decision what’s most important to me right now. What are the big issues? And I think ultimately, people vote based on who they think is going to be the most effective leader, with the problems that we’re facing at a particular time. And right now, if we predict a year and a half ahead, it looks like the biggest problems we’re going to be facing are the terrorist war against us, which irrespective of Iraq, is going to continue, whatever happens in Iraq. I hope it’s successful. If it isn’t, the same thing is going to be the case. These people are planning to kill us in different parts of the world, and I don’t see their planning stopping in the next year, year and a half, two years. So I think that’s going to be a very big part of the decision. I think that there’s going to be a real difference between the Republican candidate and the Democratic candidate on how to deal with our economy. I think the Democrats want to move it much toward a kind of continental European economy, with government health care, with increases in taxes, increases in government programs, they seem to want to solve the health care consistently by expanding government programs. And my view is, we’re going to need a president who stands up for the private economy, and stands up for the principles of growth, lower taxes, smaller government, market-based solutions to health care. After all, that’s the only way you contain costs, is by making it even more of a private, competitive, consumer-driven system. Government systems always become much more expensive than anyone thinks, and always become much more inefficient than anyone thinks.

HH: But I want to stick for a moment on the life issue, Mayor, because do your cardinal buddies, and your bishop buddies, do they ever take you aside and say you know, Mayor, we’ve got to talk about this? And we’ve got to…
RG: I…do I talk? Sure, of course. Yeah, of course. I mean, I have spiritual counsel, but that’s all very private.
HH: Okay…
RG: You want to know my position on abortion?
HH: Yeah.
RG: My position is that I hate it, I don’t like it, I would advise anyone on a personal basis that they’d be better off using the option of adoption if…but ultimately, it’s an individual’s choice that I don’t see dealing with by trying to put somebody in jail over it.
HH: Would you like to see Roe V. Wade reversed, Mayor?
RG: I would…[pause, not indicating agreement]...what I’d like to see are abortions
reduced, and adoptions increased. And I reduced…abortions declined about 15, 16%
while I was Mayor, I think more than the national average. But most importantly,
adoptions went up over 60%.
HH: But would it be a good day or a bad day for America if Roe V. Wade was reversed by the Roberts’ Court?
RG: Oh, I think that’s something the Court has to decide.
HH: All right.
RG: And I think that I would appoint strict constructionists as judges, I would not have a litmus test, there’d be a general test, a philosophical test, and that is are
you going to interpret the Constitution as best you can based on what it means,
not what you’d like it to mean? I can see conservative, strict constructionist
judges coming to the conclusion that it should be overturned, or I could see
some of them coming to the conclusion that it’s been the law for a substantial
period of time, it is precedent, and applying stare decisis. So it’s not a
litmus test.

Four Pillars Of American Prosperity

Rudy wrote in the Financial Times about his "Four Pillars Of American Prosperity". With Forbes at his side Rudy is going to be able to blow the field away with his financial knowhow and fiscal conservative credentials.

1. Reduced spending growth. Fiscal conservatives understand the value of controlling the size and cost of -- government. Controlling spending makes -- government more efficient and more effective ...

2. Lower Tax Rates. ... Taxpayers deserve the lowest possible tax rates, simplification and certainty about what those rates are likely to be -- not the gimmicks and tricks Congress imposes.

3. Regulatory Reform. The US currently has a regulatory black eye. We are being hurt by heavy-handed regulators, laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley and an environment of hyper-litigation and shareholder lawsuits … We now need to reform the unwise excesses of the initial reforms. When regulation becomes too burdensome, it weighs on us like a tax. ...

4. Sound monetary policy. A strong economy and a sound monetary policy are intertwined. The Federal Reserve Board is the ultimate, independent arbiter of monetary policy. It is essential that its appointees ... understand that stable, low inflation is an input -- not an impediment -- to … stronger economic growth. ...

Rudy on a Roll in SC

For weeks bloggers and the news media have placed Rudy's tombstone in South Carolina, still believing that social conservatives will never support him. Well SCIndex released a poll yeasterday and here are the results:
Rudy-29%
McCain- 16%
Mitt Romney- 8%

Well it looks like the only way Romney is going to win is if he pays everyone in the state to vote for him.

Hannity and Colmes

Rudy will be on Hannity and Colmes Tuesday, I think it will be a great show. I think it will show the internal strength of his campaign and if it is even 1/2 as good as the last time Rudy went on it will help make inroads with the libertarian/conservative.