Friday, September 21, 2007

Giuliani Attacks MoveOn.org   [David Freddoso]

The long, oddly shaped dining room in Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel was packed. State GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis grabbed me before the speech to remark, "We've got so many people here that we've literally run out of seats. I had to give mine up for one of our donors."

I couldn't even  find a very good place to stand, so I just posted myself near one of the tables immediately adjacent to the dais, making sure not to kick over the tray of dirty glasses nearby. Several Michigan Republican celebrities were present — I won't bore you with a list, but it obviously included Rep. Candice Miller, Giuliani's state chairwoman, who introduced him.

A few key samples from Rudy:

A couple of months ago, I came to your state, and one of you reporters asked me..."If you become president, what will you do for Michigan?"

I said, "I'll tell you the most important thing I can do for the state of Michigan. I can get you a new governor."

Rudy's solution for Michigan's economic woes:

Lower taxes, smaller government, less regulation, and recognizing that business is not the enemy. (Applause.) Where do you think the jobs come from? From the sky?

Rudy also spoke on the Democratic candidates' position on health care:

I guess, like Michael Moore, they all think that we should have Cuban med or French med or Canadian medicine or British medicine. The only difficulty with that is that everyone from Cuba, Canada, England and France wants to come here for medical care.

None of us, I think — put up your hand if you want to go to Cuba for your next medical treatment. If you do, then Michael Moore will take you there, and Hillary Clinton might pay for it — I don't know...

Rudy also endorsed a "loser pays" system for lawsuits, in order to discourage frivolous ones. Near the end, he began discussing Iraq, and ended with a fierce condemnation of MoveOn.org. One must give Rudy credit for cleverly jumping on this controversy and milking it for all it's worth, considering that it gives him the standing to deliver lines like these:

This organization, Moveon.org, is the biggest single proponent of the politics of character assasination in the history of this country. They have spent hundreds of millions of dollars attacking the characters exclusively of Republican candidates — very often for the House, sometimes the Senate, sometimes other offices. That is their specialty...to spend two or three or four million dollars in a congressional district, and destroy the reputation of the Republican candidate. That is disgraceful in and of itself...

But when they decided on the morning of September 11 to print an ad in the New York Times, taking their politics of personal assasination and pointing it at the American general who is responsible for the lives and the safety of our troops in Iraq, I said to myself, "This goes way too far. This has stepped over a line. Surely we're a decent enough country to stand up against this and say, 'Enough is enough!'"

Rudy is milking this almost as well as the MoveOn.orgers (who, by the way, sent out yet another fundraising email today trying to raise some sympathy and some cash).

Rudy then attacked Hillary Clinton for her vote for MoveOn, and her "willful suspension of disbelief" remark about Gen. Petraeus:

This is a Clintonian expression. You and I, who talk to each other straight, would say that what it means is, "He's not telling the truth." 

I'm told by staff that he went on much longer than expected — he was slated for a ten minute speech and went just over 30 minutes. But Rudy has a way of speaking that makes him interesting to watch, something I noticed months ago at CPAC. Love him or hate him, you get the feeling that he's giving you something almost like a history lecture. You aren't eager for it to end — unless, of course, you're standing there and eager to mix it up with some of the political operatives here for the conference.

09/21 09:24 PMShare