EVERYBODY'S FLIPPIN'; EVERYBODY'S FLOPPIN'-- ESPECIALLY GIULIANI. I GUESS NOW HE HATES HISPANICS TOO? OR IS HE JUST MAKING BELIEVE? DOES IT MATTER?

Rudy's taken a ratings beating lately because he's stuck to his long-standing pro-abortion/pro-gay policies. He has a record that is hard to hide and hard to run away from-- although it's taking low-information Republican voters quite some time to get beyond the fantasy heroism that's been drilled into their skulls about how he single-handedly met the Arab hordes when they invaded NYC on 9/11 and turned them away at Ellis Island.

But he's starting to get the idea that he'd better start putting some distance between himself and his record. George Marlin ran for mayor of NYC in 1993 as the nominee of the  Conservative Party. He says he's observed Giuliani for many years and "I can say categorically that he is not now, nor has he ever been, a conservative. In my judgment, his record leaves no doubt that he's a lifelong liberal." Giuliani, "like Hillary, is campaigning" for the presidency "in order to implement lifelong leftist beliefs." Sounds like a kook, right? Guess who votes in Republican primaries... especially in South Carolina and Iowa.

Today's NY Times has a story datelined Des Moines, "a long way from Ellis Island."

A decade ago, as mayor of New York, Mr. Giuliani used that historic backdrop to champion the cause of immigrants, calling attacks on people who came here legally a blow to “the heart and soul of America.” And from City Hall he often defended illegal immigrants, ordering city workers not to deny them benefits and advocating measures to ease their path to citizenship.

But now he is running for president, and the politics of immigration in the post-9/11 world is vastly different, with the issue splitting the Republican Party and voters peppering Mr. Giuliani on the campaign trail with questions about his current thinking. Perhaps more than any other candidate, Mr. Giuliani has a record on immigration with the potential to complicate his bid for the nomination.

His spin is tailor-made for the nativist haters and xenophobes who dominate the Republican Party's nomination process. He's not Tancredo-- but he's not the old Rudy Giuliani either. These days he talking about "penalties for people here illegally and requirements for them to wait at the back of the line. And while he once pushed policies like providing schooling for the children of illegal immigrants by saying, 'The reality is that they are here, and they’re going to remain here,' now he emphasizes denying amnesty."

He's doing his best to hide behind Bush's skirts. But hard corp xenophobes know Bush wants to fill the country with cheap labor for his corporate pals and Giuliani is getting the old fisheye when he addresses the subject. He's been changing his emphasis and swerving further and further to the right-- and further and further from the role he once cherished of "becoming a national leader for the cause of welcoming immigrants." Once he wanted to spend millions of dollars to help immigrants seek citizenship and it was known that "he vigorously defended the city’s policy of forbidding city employees, including police and hospital workers, from asking a person’s immigration status." In the 90's he called the Republican hicks whose votes he is soliciting these days "Know Nothings."

He's dancing around the issue and trying to weave it into his fantasy meme about being the big bad terrorist fighter. But his fighter image has been taking some hits-- first from the fire fighters who claim he's full of hooey and last week from an interesting article in New York Magazine that asks the uncomfortable question if he was as much a draft dodger as Cheney.

After receiving several deferments as a student, Giuliani applied for an occupational deferment as a law clerk, but his application was rejected. Giuliani appealed their decision, and asked the federal judge he was clerking for to petition the draft board for him. Which the judge did. When his deferment expired in 1970, Giuliani became susceptible to the draft. He received a high number and was never called. Giuliani “has made it clear that if he had been called up, he would have served,” says Katie Levinson, Giuliani’s spokesperson. He was opposed to the war in Vietnam on “strategic and tactical” grounds, she says. Asked to clarify what tactics Giuliani opposed, Levinson declined to offer specifics. “Voters will choose the next commander-in-chief based on their whole record, and we believe the mayor’s record speaks for itself.”

That's what John McCain is counting on too-- as is Hillary. (Oh-- and that picture up top? Not photoshopped; it's the real thing-- just like all the pictures of him in drag.)


UPDATE: GIULIANI BESTS McCAIN IN SOUTH CAROLINA STRAW POLL-- BUT COMES IN FOURTH

Straw poll season among the South Carolina GOP base-- and base well describes this crew. Anyway, CNN is reporting a big upset on the lunatic fringe. "Romney finished first with 132 votes, followed closely by Huckabee with 111. California Rep. Duncan Hunter got 87, Giuliani had 35 and Brownback received 19. McCain received 17 votes. Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo had five votes, former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson got three, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore each got one."