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Rudy the RazzerWill Giuliani's beat-up-on-Democrats strategy backfire?

By John Dickerson
Posted Tuesday, July 31, 2007, at 5:40 PM ET
Rudy Giuliani. Click image to expand.

Last fall, when Rudy Giuliani was campaigning for a moderate Republican senate candidate in the blue state of Maryland, he was a vision of moderation. Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were labeling Democrats appeasers for their positions on Iraq, and the official GOP strategy going into the 2006 election was that a Democratic victory would make America less safe. But Giuliani didn't play that game. During a speech to stalwart Republicans, he described the nations that harbored terrorists as "demagogues that blame and project their problems and do nothing to solve the problems of their own people," and someone from the audience yelled out: "Sounds like the Democrats." It got a big cheer.

Giuliani gently chastised the heckler: "We can't get into this partisan bickering. The fact is that Republicans and Democrats have the same objectives. They get very angry at us and we get very angry at them. Somehow we have to put that anger aside. Democrats are loyal Americans. Republicans are loyal Americans. I think we have better answers, but we have to respect each other."

Not anymore, we don't. Ten months later, everything has changed. Running for the GOP presidential nomination, Giuliani is now the chief heckler of Democrats. He called Barack Obama and John Edwards "losers," has revived the insult of "socialized medicine" when referring to Democratic health-care plans, and now charges the Democrats are trying to bring back the nanny state. He taunts Democrats to use the term "Islamic terrorists," and when they don't, he says it's all the proof one needs they won't keep us safe. I asked him in 2006 whether he thought Democrats were advocating appeasement with the terrorists. He said he didn't see it that way. He sure does now, suggesting Democrats would invite another 9/11-style attack. I expect him to start showing up at Clinton rallies and making noises with his armpit.

There are logical flaws in Giuliani's attacks. Many in the Democratic base are angry with its candidates because they are not running on socialized medicine. Even President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney don't use the term "Islamic terrorists," so fealty to the phrase is a meaningless test of resolve. As Mickey Kaus points out, when it comes to nanny politicians, Rudy is at the top of the list. A lot of us in New York at the time thought it was annoying that the mayor forced us to listen to recordings in cabs that insisted we buckle our seatbelts, but we liked him removing the squeegee men and tidying up our streets. His finger-wagging at the curators of the Brooklyn Museum for their lewd art and his sanitizing of Times Square give him credentials with social conservatives who otherwise distrust him.

Republican voters are not looking for logical consistency. They're depressed and hoping to get excited about something, so Rudy's cracks are stirring. Giuliani's aides say there are bigger differences with Democrats on the big issues—taxes and terrorism—than with Rudy's Republican rivals, and he's merely pointing that out. But the way Giuliani is making his case risks damaging his chances in the general election by alienating moderates and independents who don't like such showy partisanship. Independents are already far closer in their views to Democrats than Republicans, particularly on the dominant issue, the Iraq war. Their shift away from Bush was critical in the Democrats' victories in November, and independents don't look like they're moving back to the GOP. They are frustrated and pessimistic about the current state of politics (PDF). In fact, the partisanship and gridlock that Giuliani signals with his regular attacks are what make independents want to elect a Democratic president. Democrats lead among independents by a margin of 10 points in the latest Democracy Corps poll (PDF). (The poll also shows Democratic candidates lose independent voters when they make partisan attacks against Bush.)

This is an age-old tension. Candidates must appeal to their base in the primaries without alienating the middle in the general election. But Giuliani has a particular problem. Part of his pitch to conservatives is that he is more electable than his GOP rivals, because he can woo independents in a race against the Democratic nominee. In a recent Washington Post poll of independents, he was the most attractive Republican. In a Fox poll of independents (PDF), he beat all Democrats by a safe margin. Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney lost among independents by double digits. Only John McCain (whose candidacy has tanked since the Fox poll) did as well as Rudy.

Rudy's appeal to independents is one of the main reasons social conservatives are supposed to overlook his moderation on gun control, gay rights, and abortion. If social conservatives won't turn out for him in a general election in the same strength they did for George Bush, and independents and moderates find him too pugilistic, then his argument that he's the best general-election candidate falls apart. Giuliani knew what to do with a partisan heckler last fall. Will he know what to do with himself?

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John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .
Photograph of Rudy Giuliani by Marc Serota/Getty Images for NASCAR.
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Remarks from the Fray:

Social conservatives may not be able to get excited about Rudy, but they will get excited about keeping anyone with the last name "Clinton" out of the white house.

Right now, Guiliani has to just lock up the republican primary. This is probably going to be easy. Republicans are inclined to vote the president who will be attacked by the democrats the least. They are sick of being the party of "Bush, the Idiot Cowboy". The creepy Mormon, the Manchurian candidate, and the lazy actor just don't measure up to the mayor who cut crime and kept New York together after 9/11. Cheap shots about his divorces will backfire, especially if he's running against Madame Cuckold.

Of course, if Obama is nominated, Guiliani is going to have to bust his ass and work hard to mobilize the base. Not enough people hate Obama, and anyone who looks like he hates Obama will be called racist.

--Madai

(To reply, click here.)

The partisans in both the Democratic and Republican parties have become much more ideological over the last six years. Given that Dickerson's writing about Rudy Giuliani, let's just consider the Republicans here. Republicans have become much more conservative than they were in 2008 and demand that their candidates toe the conservative line. In other words, conservatives want to hear that the Iraq War is good, torture is appropriate, global warming is a myth, the Bush administration is not conservative enough, and the Democrats are effeminate and ineffective if not treasonous.

What about appealing to moderates in the general election? There's several reasons that's not going to happen.

First, there aren't that many people who are genuinely independent. As Matthew Dowd established while he worked in the Bush White House, most moderates and independents vote for one party most of the time and the real number of voters who have to make a decision is something like 7 or 8%.

Second, the media is heavily focused on the "consistency" and "authenticity" of presidential candidates. Of course, partisan bloggers keep a close eye on the consistency of candidates and criticize them heavily for wavering. But the mainstream media also likes consistency stories. Because such stories involve so little reflection, they're an attractive way for hard-working political reporters to punch out articles on deadline. As a result, it's much harder for candidates to get away with changing their story line for the general election.

Not that this particularly bothers the Republicans. What the Republican Party has often done is mount smear campaigns against Democratic candidates during the general election campaigns. The Swift Boat campaign and the Willie Horton ads were vicious, hyper-partisan, and successful because they convinced enough independent voters that the Democratic candidate could not be a credible president.

It turns out that Republicans like to "appeal to the middle" by being even more viciously partisan than when they're appealing to the base. That's one reason why Giuliani's focused on his current put-downs of the Democrats. If he wins the Republican nomination, he'll have to rev the partisanship up further.

--riccaric

(To reply, click here.)

Mr. Dickerson is being disingenuous when he says of Giuliani, "he was a vision of moderation." Mr. Dickerson is a seasoned professional journalist. He knows full well that last year, before he threw his hat into the ring, Giuliani was "America's Mayor." Of course he was going to present a moderate face. Anyone who is familiar with Da Mayor's tenure in New York knows full well that he is a pit bull, determined to get what he wants. He is also hot tempered and ruthless, but unlike some candidates, not unprincipled. For Mr. Dickerson to note with disdain and surprise that Giuliani has returned to his natural form rings false as sneakers on the Statue of Liberty.

Giuliani has returned to his natural pugnacious and partisan ways for many reasons. One of the strongest, as Mr. Dickerson acknowledges, the Democrats are swinging hard to the left. Attacking "socialized medicine" is red meat to the grass roots of the Republican Party. If Giuliani wants to win, and he surely is "in it to win it," he must convert hard core Republicans to his cause. His attacks against Obama, Edwards and Clinton are a rallying cry. Again, Dickerson's surprise is a poorly present ruse.

Granted, haranguing passengers to buckle up is pure nanny statism, but Giuliani was correct in his finger waving at public money being used to desecrate the image of Mary; while this was a solid political move, it was also one of conviction. As for "sanitizing Times Square," social conservatives applauded this clean up, but so did almost all of the law abiding citizens of New York. Doing the right thing need not be seen as pandering.

As for alienating the general public with its supposed leaning towards the Democrats, that is whistling past the cemetery: as poorly as President Bush is polling, and as badly as the prior congress polled, the newly Democratic congress is polling even lower.

Is Giuliani unelectable? The polls allow for his winning, but on the other hand, our Madam Senator has such high negatives that she is currently unelectable. As a New Yorker, I was disappointed that we didn't have a Clinton/Giuliani show down. I look forward to seeing if America is heading to "subway series" for the presidency.

--IMKessel

(To reply, click here.)

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