ARE LOW INFORMATION GOP VOTERS GETTING TO KNOW THE REAL RUDY YET?

Giuliani continues to score high numbers in meaningless polls of low information Republican primary voters. They think he fought off the Arab Army that invaded NYC on 9/11. It may take a couple months before they find out what his "troops" thought of his less than heroic performance and what Rudy did and didn't do on that fateful day. Seeing the way he's been savaged in recent days by social conservatives promoting an agenda of Giuliani the abortion-loving/gun-hating/drag-wearing misfit, I'd say he'll be lucky if 2008 rolls around and Huckabee is still considering him for the VP slot.

I don't know how many of the low-info wingnuts in the important GOP primary states read the L.A. Times but I suspect the Times isn't the only paper in the country running a story on Giuliani's odd choices-- odd for a Republican-- for the judiciary.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, in an effort to temper his support for abortion rights and his other socially liberal stances, has been assuring conservatives that as president he would appoint "strict constructionists" to the federal bench, in the tradition of Supreme Court jurists Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and John G. Roberts Jr.

But now, some prominent conservatives are saying that Giuliani's record as mayor undermines that promise. In his eight years leading New York City, they say, Giuliani appointed a number of judges who did not appear to fit the conservative mold...
conservative audiences to drive home the importance he places on judicial nominations...

"Rudy's judges were mostly liberal," said Connie Mackey, a former New Yorker who now serves as vice president of FRC Action, the legislative and political arm of the conservative Family Research Council. "Any pro-lifer who believes they are going to get the kind of judge out of Rudy Giuliani that we see in either Roberts or Alito is probably going to be disappointed."

Despite having successfully bought off Ted Olson, here's the Federalist Society rap on Giuliani:
* In the early '80s, as the third-ranking official in the Reagan Department of Justice, Giuliani wasn't involved in  picking judges and didn't use his influence to advocate for conservatives. (Huge sin.)

* In the 90s he appointed 127 judges, almost all Democrats and liberals and even gay activists.

*Although normal Americans looks at the Bush years as a lowpoint, for the Federalists it's been the glory days-- especially when they got to publically eviscerate Harriet Mier, Bush's personal choice for a Supreme Court nomination-- so that they could get one of their own shills in while Bush looked on helplessly. They're worried a Giuliani Administration won't be nearly as friendly or as easy to manipulate or, when necessary, to push around. Giuliani wasn't out front fighting for their radical right nominees. An old friend of Giuliani's and a prominent far right extremist, Bruce Fein, explains to Newsday that "Rudy, in my judgment, never had a real burning conviction that judges  were really important... I don't get the sense that Rudy as a  president would say, 'I want to put judges at the top of my agenda.'" (For the Federalists that is the agenda.)


And speaking of powerful GOP wingnuts, Phyllis Schlafly, head of the neo-Nazi Eagle Forum, said "the Giuliani surge in public opinion polls would be short-lived and that Giuliani's pledge to appoint conservative jurists would not win over the GOP base. 'The grass roots are more sophisticated than that,' she said in a recent interview." Just as far to the right, Connie Mackey of the lunatic fringe Family Research Council smugly proclaimed that Giuliani's "judges were mostly liberal. Any pro-lifer who believes they are going to get the kind of judge out of Rudy Giuliani that we see in either Roberts or Alito is probably going to be disappointed." The appointment of gay and lesbian judges has become an albatross around Giuliani's neck to the extremists.

Meanwhile, one of his key supporters in Congress, homophobic closet queen David Dreier (R-CA), has been skipping around the country speaking up for his man Rudy. On Fox & Friends he told viewers that he has "the greatest regard for all the candidates... but at the end of the day, I  believe the American people are yearning for bold, decisive, competent leadership. Everyone knows that Rudy Giuliani walked through the fire of September, 11th, 2001 and came out stronger. ...The thing that people don't know is that he had the responsibility of managing the fourth largest  government in our nation, and he did so by taking Reagan conservative principles." Fox & Friends have never been sticklers for fact checkers.

Another congressional supporter is right-wing Louisiana Senator David Vitter who just signed on as Giuliani's southern regional campaign chairman (being called by Capitol Hill wags "the Louisiana Purchase"). In return for the fancy title Vitter allowed a press release to go out saying "Rudy Giuliani has the strong, unwavering leadership and sound judgment we need in this time of war and terrorist threat. His performance under the extreme pressure of 9/11 was no fluke. The world needs these Churchill-like qualities as much as it did in the 1940s... Second, Rudy proved as Mayor of New York that he is a conservative reformer who can make government work using conservative economic policy... I am convinced that Rudy would appoint the best federal judges of all the major candidates. Obviously, I disagree with Rudy on some very significant social issues. These are really important matters to me and many people I represent. But after numerous  personal meetings with him, it is very clear to me that he is not running for President to advance any liberal social agenda." Let's see... that should convince... Vitter's cousins Melvyn and Archibald? Archibald's wife Roxanne?


UPDATE: RUDY HAS A WEAKER POINT THAN THE SLOPPY PERSONAL LIFE-- 9/11

Many low information GOP voters think Giuliani is the hero of 9/11. He isn't.

By now, the average American voter knows that Giuliani offered important and comforting words to the nation on 9/11, filling a Bush-Cheney leadership vacuum. But voters may not know that he is not universally beloved by the real, rank-and-file first responders of 9/11, and that survivors and family members harbor bitter, lasting resentments. The public may also be unaware that Giuliani's preparation for and management of the crisis that has come to define his career, and on which his presidential ambitions rest, has actually become a case study for emergency management experts of what not to do. In fact, rather than representing his strongest qualification for the White House, his actions on 9/11 could be a political liability.