Our partners at Veracifier went down to DC to spend a little time at the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Ho-Down last weekend. Here’s some of what they saw …
Check out David Greenberg’s piece on Giuliani in tomorrow’s Post. The basic point is a simple but very accurate one: the talk of Rudy as too moderate or liberal for the GOP is malarkey. Rudy’s reputation for liberalism is based on three factors — abortion rights, gay rights and serial adultery. In which order, I’m not certain. But those basically cover it. On most other key issues Rudy is fundamentally an authoritarian, and thus a right-winger on the key issues of the day. And that’s a product Republicans are buying.
I’ve discussed at some length the group of fanatics and warmongers that Rudy has surrounded himself with as advisors on foreign policy. But there’s a point that’s important to take note of here. In their book American Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy, Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay make an important point about President Bush’s foreign policy and the influence of his advisors — the so-called “vulcans.” They argued that it is a mistake to believe that because President Bush had no experience or deep knowledge of foreign affairs that his policies were just the work of his advisors, as though he were a blank slate or an empty vessel into which they could simply pour their agenda.
The advisors were key. But Bush didn’t end up with these advisors by accident. And as we’ve gotten to know President Bush over the last eight years it has become clear that the key aspects of his policies — petulant unilateralism, a reliance on force, inflexibility and more — are rooted in the president’s personality. They cohere with a world view that he clearly brings to the table.
I think the same is the case with Rudy. Yes, Podhoretz and Pipes and Rubin and the rest of them are nuts. But it’s no accident he’s gravitating toward them and vice versa. He has a deeply authoritarian personality. And his approach to governing is heavy on bullying and what in domestic affairs amount to appeals to force. Soften the words a bit and I think even his fans would agree to that description as the root of his success.
The thing is that whatever his views on abortion, which he’s trimming daily, Rudy offers to the Bush 30% what they love about Bush which is authoritarian government and aggression abroad. The absence of conspicuous religiosity in Rudy’s World is a significant difference. But I think these other qualities, especially with where core Republicans are on Iraq, trump even that.
At least on foreign policy and presidential power — two pretty big issues at the moment — Rudy is Bush without the soft edges.
On Friday, Greg Sargent noted the fact that while Fox News was demanding that John McCain remove Fox News video from his commercials and website, they didn’t seem to mind that the other GOP candidates — especially Rudy Giuliani — were doing just the same thing. After the Times picked up Greg’s story, Fox said they’d apply the same standard to each of the contenders.
But there’s an important fact revealed, or perhaps confirmed, by this little incident. Roger Ailes (former advisor to Giuliani and longtime friend) of Fox News plans to use the networks megaphone and resources on Giuliani’s behalf. That would happen for any of the Republican nominees after the primaries. But it could be a significant factor during the Republican primaries.
Question I’m trying to think through: in US history, how many elected officials have ever tried to make arrangements to remain in office beyond their legally-sanctioned term of office?
Beside Rudy, that is.
Really, not just a rhetorical question. I’m trying to think of other examples.
Late Update: So far nuthin’. TPM Reader DP notes the ‘three governors’ controversy in Georgia in the 1940s. Basically, governor elect dies before inauguration, thus leaving a dispute over who to inaugurate which led the incumbent to say he wouldn’t depart until the controversy was settled. Eventually it was resolved in the courts. Some similarities, but it seems essentially different in as much as there was, through no doing of the incumbent’s, no agreed upon successor to inaugurate.
Another reader, TPM Reader JI, points to the example of Philly Mayor Frank Rizzo who after serving two terms tried and failed to have the term limit law overturned so he could run again in 1979. Again, this seem qualitatively different. Sure, it’s a bit of a power grab and a bit unseemly. But if the law can be changed by the proper legislative enactment, that’s very different. And in any case, it’s the opportunity to stand before the voters again, not just remain in office past your term.
In anyhow, other examples? Contenders? It’s a fun history question, in addition to having a certain heuristic value of evaluating Rudy’s likelihood of subverting the constitution.
From McClatchy …
Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial, ubiquitous Iraqi politician and one-time Bush administration favorite, has re-emerged as a central figure in the latest U.S. strategy for Iraq.
His latest job: To press Iraq’s central government to use early security gains from the surge to deliver better electricity, health, education and local security services to Baghdad neighborhoods. That’s the next phase of the surge plan. Until now, the U.S. military, various militias, insurgents and some U.S. backed groups have provided those services without great success.
That the U.S. and Iraqi officials are again turning to Chalabi, this time to restore life to Baghdad neighborhoods, speaks to his resiliency in this nascent government. It’s also, some say, his latest effort to promote himself as a true national advocate for everyday Iraqis.
Yesterday, we held a little exercise to try to see how many other times in US history an elected official has tried to extend his stay in power beyond his legally sanctioned term of office. It turned out to be an interesting historical exercise beside our attempt to see how many precedents there were to Rudy Giuliani’s attempt to stay in office as mayor on an emergency basis after 9/11. We found out about a few cases where unresolved election disputes led to an incumbent trying to remain in office until the controversy was resolved. There was a Reconstruction Era governor of Texas who tried to stay in office after losing a disputed election. There have been numerous cases of incumbents trying to remove term limit laws blocking them from another run for office. But that strikes me as an entirely different matter — myopic and power-hungry perhaps, but there’s nothing wrong with changing a law as long as it’s done in the proper way.
To remind everyone, not long after 9/11, as Rudy’s term of office was coming to an end, he suggested and briefly pushed for being allowed to remain in office past his term on the argument that in the aftermath of 9/11 his leadership was indispensable and that the new mayor would perhaps have a period of apprenticeship under Rudy to come up to speed on running the city.
What it all comes down to is that I’m not sure there’s any example of an elected official simply trying to extend his term of office beyond the legally-sanctioned period on the basis of an alleged emergency simply on the argument that he’s indispensable, as Rudy did just after 9/11.
I remember thinking at the time that that was the moment when post-9/11 Rudy really jumped the now-proverbial shark. Rudy, you remember, had been set to leave office a pretty unpopular mayor. He’d just had cancer, dropped out of the senate race, was in the midst of an acrimonious divorce. 9/11, for once the phrase makes sense, changed everything. People who’d never liked him credited him for inspiring leadership in the hours and days after 9/11. But he just couldn’t bow out with grace. He had to try to stay in office longer. Even in his moment of greatest triumph, he couldn’t resist being who he was.
Little has been made or remembered about this little coda to the Rudy 911 glory myth. But when judging how faithful a custodian he’ll be of the rule of law and the constitution, I think this little chapter is a telling one.
Huckabee pulls even with Giuliani for second place in new Iowa poll.