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Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Giuliani and abortion: Perhaps not the defining issue that many think, he says. Even so, the ex-NYC mayor says there’s common ground to be had
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rudy Giuliani finished his “town hall” meeting at Oglethorpe U. about an hour ago.
The majority of questions dealt with terrorism and immigration. One dealt with the fair tax. Another focused on the killing of dogs and cats. Seriously.
None touched on abortion. During his quick session with the press gaggle, we asked Giuliani whether he took the lack of questions on this topic as a sign that some issues — like terrorism and immigration — trump traditional GOP concerns.
“For certain people, they do, sure. That’s what elections are all about,” Giuliani said. (Click here for a sound clip)
“That’s why I take a lot of questions. Questions more than polls tell me what people feel strongly about. Think about a poll. Somebody calls you up, you’re at home, they impose 30 questions on you. They create the agenda and then you give the yes-no answer. Questions are about what people are passionate about, what’s on their minds.
“I think there are many, many people who see the defining issues in this election are about how we deal with terrorism, how we create a safer America, from that point of view and other points of view, how we deal with our economy,” he said.
But he held out the possibility of finding common ground with abortion opponents.
“For example, I would do everything I could do to reduce abortion, consistent with — in my case — I think there should be respect for a woman’s choice here, and government [should] not coerce in that area,” he said. “But as a constructive thing, I would look for ways in which we could reduce abortions. I think all Republicans and all Democrats just about agree on that — that we should reduce abortions through free choice, through making information available, through making adoptions available. Through making the decision more of a complete choice.
“So maybe there’s room for common ground there.”
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Penultimate question for Rudy Giulini: Are too many dogs and cats being killed?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rudy Giuliani is now shaking hands with the participants of his “town hall” meeting at Oglethorpe U.
Escapes with the word “abortion” never mentioned, by him or by participants.
The next-to-the-last question was this, from a woman we couldn’t see: More than 100,000 dogs and cats are killed in Atlanta each year, and millions more across the U.S. What’s your position?
Giuliani says he favors adoption. “I think it’s a local and state issue,” he said.
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Rudy’s here, and talks about terrorism and the economy, but not abortion
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Don’t have his name yet, but Rudy Giuliani’s warm-up guy at Oglethorpe U. stressed out his candidate as a guy who breaks the mold. “One of his defining characteristics is his refusal to be classified and labeled,” he said. (Turns out this fellow was Lawrence Schall, president of Oglethorpe. Our apologies for not recognizing him on sight.)
He also noted that Oglethorpe welcomed a president-to-be about 75 years ago this month. It was FDR.
Giuliani walked in, got a standing ovation, and quickly stripped off both his jacket and his glasses. Only a few seconds passed before the former New York mayor mentioned the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
His most inflammatory statement yet came when he drew the difference between Republicans and Democrats.
“Republicans are much more willing to be on offense against terrorism,” Giuliani said.
First question for him was about the fair tax. Giuliani said the time wasn’t right for it.
His second question came from an elderly woman who didn’t like current approach to the war in Iraq, and thought it might be breeding more terrorists.
“I respectfully disagree,” Giuliani said, and questioned whether the woman understood the problem.
No questions about abortion so far.
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Waiting for Rudy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re both here at the Rudy Giuliani event at Oglethorpe U.
Rudy’s running about 30 minutes behind. He’s on the ground, we’re told, and on his way. He had a previous “town hall” event in Charleston. The relatively small, now stifling room in the student center is packed — we’re guessing close to 200. Impressive for an event thrown together at the last minute. Five TV sticks, and more than a half-dozen print and Internet reporters.
It’s not Barack Obama territory, but still — this is May, 2007.
This is largely a non-traditional crowd. Not many faces that we recognize from previous GOP events. Oglethorpe administrators tell us they worked their student and alumni e-mail lists. For many, it’ll be their first look at the guy.
We’ve talked to a handful of supporters. They’re pleased with the results of the Tuesday debate in South Carolina, and readily admit that Rudy skated past any hard questioning on social issues — thanks in large part to Ron Paul, who lobbed Giuliani the statement that 9/11 was in part caused by the United States sticking its nose into places it had no business.
We’re guessing Rudy slipped him a twenty after it was over.
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An Iraq video enters the 10th District race against Jim Whitehead
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A Youtube video has just made the race for the 10th District congressional seat, the first federal election since November, a tad more interesting.
The northeast Georgia district is overwhelmingly conservative. And the money leader in the 10-candidate, officially non-partisan race is former Republican state senator Jim Whitehead of Evans.
Whitehead’s topic of choice has been illegal immigration. In interviews and a first radio ad, he’s avoided the issue of Iraq. Early this month, Tom Crawford of capitolimpact.com quoted Whitehead as saying “Iraq has not been a big thing in our district.”
Someone, in some Democratic camp, wants to change that — and perhaps also wants to test the resonance of an ant-Iraq message in a Republican-dominated district.
This video link to youtube.com, labeled “Stop Whitehead,” came over the transom last night, just as the GOP debate in South Carolina kicked off.
It takes on Whitehead’s quote about the lack of interest among voters in Iraq. We don’t know who’s behind it. But the ready-for-TV production values, while nothing fancy, are excellent — which indicates there could be significant money and strategizing involved.
The ad would fit with the platform espoused by candidate Jim Marlow of Lincolnton, around whom many Democrats are rallying. We called the Marlow campaign. A spokesman said it ain’t them.
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Andy Young, Wolfowitz, and the Dutch conspiracy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The best political TV on Tuesday night wasn’t the Republican debate in South Carolina. It was former Atlanta mayor Andrew Young, defending World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz on “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” on PBS.
Young, who just turned 75, sat in front of the camera with his eyes half shut, looking like a sleepy king frog, until his turn to speak. Then he sprang to life and denounced the entire controversy as a load of “bureaucratic crap.”
The former U.N. ambassador blamed Dutch members of the World Bank board for allowing their resentment over U.S. involvement in Iraq to lead them into what he called a proxy war against Wolfowitz.
And he says that the time may be coming when the World Bank, which addresses poverty, is irrelevant.
Wolfowitz is accused of doing favors for his girlfriend, who was an employee of the World Bank when he arrived at his post. Here’s the link to the transcript, but the juicy parts are below:
YOUNG: This is a professional woman who was at the World Bank six or eight years before Wolfowitz got there. She was a ranking member. She’s a British woman, who’s a Muslim, who’s fluent in Arabic, and in almost any corporation in the world she could make a half-a-million dollars. She’s at the bank because of her competence.
Paul Wolfowitz coming created a conflict, which he went to the ethics committee to try to solve. The ethics committee would not let him recuse himself, so they put him in this trick. And now they want to use this trick to undermine his leadership.
I think what they’re doing is undermining the credibility, and particularly the Dutch. They have a reputation for tolerance, for generosity, for forgiveness, and an expansive view of the world that I’ve always admired. They were very helpful to us in Atlanta. They were very helpful in the Holocaust, and now, for them to be caught in this bureaucratic crap, is embarrassing to me.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Clarify what you….
YOUNG: I think who’s on trial here is not Paul Wolfowitz, but that board. In a world where tolerance is required, where women in the Islamic world are the hope of the entire planet, for them to take their prejudices — which I agree with — against him on the war in Iraq and resurrect it to try to put it into the World Bank political scene is, in many ways, obscene.
It’s sort of like Imus referring to these young women on the basketball team and ignoring all of the professional competence and all of the skills and talents that are at stake here. Paul Wolfowitz and Riza Shaha have tremendous things to offer the world. And I think, right now, staid bureaucrats who’ve been there 25 years bungling in the bank are trying to make him a scapegoat.
And more:
ANDREW YOUNG: Yes. For me, this is more like the scandal in the United Nations, where when Europe began to feel the influence of new coalitions in the third world threatening their dominance, they sought to get rid of the people who were pulling together these new coalitions.
I think the threat is that Paul Wolfowitz is pulling together a third world coalition that, while it doesn’t have the money, it controls the markets of the future. And the old colonial routines of running Africa from Europe will no longer apply under Wolfowitz.
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At last, a topic for dinner-table conversation when Newt, the other non-candidate, comes to town
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Republican state senators Chip Rogers of Woodstock and Eric Johnson of Savannah sent a joint e-mail to their colleagues in the Legislature on Tuesday, urging them to jump on the Fred Thompson for president bandwagon.
Just another sign of internal discontent with the current crop of GOP candidates.
“Officially, Senator Thompson has not made his final decision, but we believe an announcement is imminent. Once he announces, support will surge in like a tidal wave. We believe we have a small window of opportunity to really stand out in the eyes of the country and the mind of our future president if we stand tall for him now,” the message says.
Johnson and Rogers aim to build a list of interested Georgia legislators they can hand Thompson, and help move him off the dime. The pair point out that a majority of the state House Republicans in Texas have done something similar.
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