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Rudy's Troubles Go Far Past the Missing Memo

By Jeralyn, Section Elections 2008
Posted on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 01:08:00 AM EST
Tags: Rudy Giuliani (all tags)
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Whether the Rudy Giuliani campaign memo was misplaced or purloined, that's not the point. Nor is the point the content of the memo. Newsweek explains.

The real problem for Giuliani isn’t the missing binder itself, it’s that it went missing in the first place. Giuliani’s candidacy, after all, will be centered around his expertise in security, order and efficiency.

“It’s hard to say you’re staying up all hours thinking about every unplugged hole in the homeland-security infrastructure when you can’t even keep track of your own documents,” said one Republican strategist who asked not to be identified because he has yet to affiliate with a presidential candidate.

There's an even deeper problem developing surrounding Giuliani, one concerning his arrogance.

For months, some Republicans have scratched their heads over the Giuliani camp’s slow response to charges he can’t run in culturally conservative primary states. They’ve also marveled over his team’s lack of concern over the potential political trouble waiting in Giuliani Partners' client list.

....Some in the party have wondered if this laissez-faire attitude suggests Giuliani isn’t really serious about his presidential run. Others see a more sinister explanation: arrogance. In the eyes of some Republicans, Giuliani is banking too heavily on his 9/11 performance to shield him from intense personal scrutiny. This could prove a fatal error. "Bernie Kerik thought he was Teflon, too,” said one Republican strategist....

Other problems for Rudy: His extravagant lifestyle; his lack of support and resentment by minorities; his recent expression of support for Bush.

My view: Arrogance with a capital A will be Rudy's undoing.

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    Rudy's Troubles Go Far Past the Missing Memo | 12 comments (12 topical)

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    An arrogant bum (none / 0) (#1)
    by koshembos on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 06:22:35 AM EST
    On 9/11 Rudy ran around with his slavish MSM TV crews, doing no real good (what can you do after the fact) and became a national hero the same way John Wayne became a big hero making heroic movies. I don't know what his clients expect him to do, but it is clear that they are getting nothing.

    As mayor he employed police goons to form gangs killing minorities and terrorizing the homeless. Stalin's Moscow was also quiet and clean.

    And this guy is arrogant? Why? He is down right pathetic.

    Any lawyers in the house? (none / 0) (#2)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 06:46:06 AM EST
    Given that Rudy is a private citizen, and given that the document was private property, wasn't it in fact stolen?

    not necessarily (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by scribe on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 06:54:48 AM EST
    If you leave something laying around, and someone else picks it up, it's a good defense to any charge of "stealing" to aver "the property in question was abandoned".

    In so many words, "finders' keepers" is still the law in most jurisdictions.

    And, as to Thuggy Rudy, he's a loser, who I can't wait to watch weep.  So long as his fall does as much damage to the Rethugs' chances as possible.

    Parent

    Little Watergate?? (none / 0) (#5)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 10:30:03 AM EST
    From the linked article:

    The Daily News' source, who is "sympathetic to another campaign" says he found the dossier in a hotel room; Giuliani's camp says it was stolen from a staffer's luggage).

    Okay. I guess finders' keepers' would work in some cases... But if your bank carelessly credits your account with $10 million and you immediately withdraw it, do you think that would work?

    Wouldn't it go to value and intent?

    Unless you believe that the Daily News' source just wonders around hotel rooms looking for things, then you must assune that if he is telling the truth, then someone called him and gave him the location??

    My guess is that whoever stole it from the staffers luggage put it in the hotel room and called the Daily News.

    Now, given that finders' keepers' doesn't apply, wasn't the Daily News reporter receiving stolen property? And does he have the right to protect his source?

    Isn't this trending towards Watergate? A crime committed for political purposes intended to harm the opposition while those who know who did it concealing that fact??

    Parent

    Good for Rudy. (none / 0) (#4)
    by Edger on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 07:02:36 AM EST
    He's finally making himself useful. He's finally become so arrogant that he's showing the world how arrogant he's become because he's too arrogant to even bother trying to hide how arrogant he's become.

    Stay that course, Rudy.

    Culturally Conservative (none / 0) (#7)
    by jondee on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 10:57:23 AM EST
    I dont care whether he runs or not, but the fact that people have to worry about whether some      
    areas of the U.S are too "culturally              
    consrvative" to give someone a fair hearing based on the fact that the candidate is what? An Italian-American? Is just downright pathetic.    

    Reminds me of some years back when some Lott type said "folks down here wont vote fer somebody named Coo-mo." I thought we'd come a little further than that.

    giuliani (none / 0) (#8)
    by diogenes on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 03:14:31 PM EST
    He can't beat Hillary.  McCain can.  If Giuliani implodes now, so much the better for McCain.
    really, I think this is a scam by Rudy (none / 0) (#9)
    by scribe on Thu Jan 04, 2007 at 04:40:00 PM EST
    to give him an excuse to withdraw.

    Here's an article from today's NYDN, headlined "World's Mayor:  Jet-set Giuliani makes fortune globetrotting".  This article draws on the 140-page document.

    Note that Rudy hasn't asked, let alone demanded, that the NYDN give it back or even stop writing from it.

    The article says:

    If Rudy Giuliani runs for President, he may be the first candidate whose travel schedule gets lighter, not heavier, as a result - but it will also lighten his wallet.

    A close review of the former mayor's private schedule during the last three months of last year - as outlined in 140 pages of sensitive campaign files obtained by the Daily News - shows Giuliani touching almost every corner of the Earth, from Europe and Asia to South America and the Middle East.

    But his foreign globetrotting - through 11 countries on four continents - was virtually all for the same purpose, and it wasn't to bone up on foreign policy. It was to give paid speeches - an average of one a week over three months - to business roundtables, which offer top dollar to hear him opine on "leadership" and "crisis management."

    Forbes magazine has estimated that Giuliani earned as much as $8 million last year from these speeches, which are thought to garner the former mayor up to $100,000 apiece.  And that's on top of his business and consulting work.

    My print copy of the paper has a graphic, not available to my knowledge on-line, showing "some" of his travels last quarter, "according to copies of his private schedule obtained by the Daily News":

    10/4/06 Auburn,MI - "Get Motivated" speech
    10/5 Chicago - paid speech to International Sanitary Supply Association
    10/9 Portland, OR - "Get Motivated" speech
    10/15-17 Warsaw - paid speech to Institute for International Research, meeting with Polish Prime Minister
    10/24-25 Frankfurt/Main - paid speech to World Business Forum on "crisis management"
    10/26 Milan - paid speech to separate gathering of World Business Forum
    10/31 Dayton, OH - "Get Motivated" speech, followed by stumping for candidates
    11/2-7 Stumping for Repug candidates in Mo., S.C., N.H., Pa., Mi., Fl., Md., Iowa, N.J.
    11/7-9 enroute Buenos Aires, paid speech to business group in Buenos Aires
    11/13 Charlotte, NC - "Get Motivated" speech
    11/14 Edmonton - paid speech to Global Leadership Forum
    11/15 departs for New Delhi via London
    11/17-18 New Delhi - paid speech at Hindustan Times dinner
    11/20-22 Meetings in Chicago and NY
    11/27-28 Riga, Latvia - attends NATO Summit meeting
    12/2-4 travel to Dubai and Qatar - attend Asian Games, for which he served as a consultant
    12/5  Las Vegas - meeting with Jewish Republicans
    12/6-8  Meetings in NY, Houston, Dallas
    12/10-13  Meetings in Japan
    12/19  NYC - first fund-raiser for Presidential Exploratory Committee

    This is, apparently, in addition to his work with "Giuliani Partners" - the "Security consulting" company in which Bernie Kerik was once a partner, and in addition to his law firm "[something - I forget the name] Giuliani", and in addition to owning a piece of the company that makes "camelback" water bladder/bottles for US troops, and who-knows-what-else.

    This guy has got to be pulling down $10 mil a year - minimum - from his businesses and speechifying.  I count 10 speeches - and that was in a quarter with a national election, two major holidays and him devoting more than a week (of the 13 in the quarter) to stumping for candidates.  I cannot see him giving up all of that money - who cares about prestige - for the very iffy chance of running for Preznit while carrying all the baggage he brings along.  

    Moreover, if I were in his shoes, and knowing that since the list and plan were written a bunch of people on his list of "big donors who'll lead others to us" have already committed to the other, leading candidate, I would have seriously considered leaking this list to the press, through someone.  This would give an opportunity for Rudy to soldier on knowing in advance he will quit.  He would do that let things develop the way they will - his campaign never quite catching fire, fundraising never quite taking off, questions, allegations of incompetence, all the rest - and sometime late this year or after a primary or two, drop out and say he'll support the nominee.  A little charade now, to show the Party he's serious and keep his spot in line, in the hope for a chance next time around.  By which time, people will have tended to forgotten his thuggery in office, Bernie Kerik will be an old memory, all that will be remembered will be his post 9/11 "leadership", and the PR machine will smooth out the rest of the bumps.  

    2008 is McCain's last chance - he's already almost too old, and Rudy's setting himself up for 2012.

    the Daily news is really milking this story (none / 0) (#15)
    by scribe on Sun Jan 07, 2007 at 09:27:22 AM EST
    Say hello to Rudy Thuggiani, friend of nuclear power plants just outside NYC, and booster of coal-fired power plants throughout the South.  Today's article goes into greater detail of Thuggy's business dealings, and his partnership in a Houston/NYC law firm "with a large lobbying arm".

    Mr. Police as thugs.
    Mr. "there's more than enough regulation of power plants and we should cut it back"

    Read the story.

    One can keep going - but it's getting clearer that he's probably in a league with Cheney for putative conflicts of interest if he ever gets elected to another office, but meaner and pettier than Deadeye, too.

    for more (none / 0) (#16)
    by scribe on Sun Jan 07, 2007 at 09:47:48 AM EST
    on coal-fired power plants, read this.

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    Rudy's Troubles Go Far Past the Missing Memo | 12 comments (12 topical)

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