Monday, December 03, 2007

Rudy and the Deep South   [Byron York]

I have a new story up on Rudy Giuliani's appearance Friday in South Carolina.  So much of the coverage of the state seems to involve evangelicals or Bob Jones University, but there's another part, one that Giuliani was targeting Friday:

Giuliani appears from outside the pavilion and walks to the microphone. And here in Okatie, amidst the marshes and moss-draped oaks of coastal South Carolina, the mayor gets a rousing…Brooklyn welcome.

Giuliani just happens to have brought with him New York Rep. Peter King, from Nassau County, who is accompanying the mayor on this trip to South Carolina and Florida. "Congressman King comes from New York," Giuliani tells the crowd. "Pete, you originally come from Brooklyn, too?"

Well, he actually grew up in Queens. But King just nods, and Giuliani’s New York talk brings lots of applause.

"He also comes from Brooklyn originally," Giuliani says again, in case anyone didn’t hear.

More applause.

There are a lot of members of Sun City’s New York Club at today’s event. There are dozens and dozens of clubs, covering all sorts of interests and activities, at Sun City, and one of the bigger ones is for people who have moved to the Low Country from New York. They like their old mayor. And there are a lot of them. An official at Pulte Homes, which owns Sun City, tells me that the great majority of the community’s more than 10,000 residents are from out of state, and the states that the largest number come from are New York and New Jersey. Put them together with another large group of retirees, from Ohio, and this is not exactly a southern crowd. Not even close to a southern crowd.

12/03 07:58 AMShare