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(s)Elections See other (s)Elections Articles Title: Neocon hawks go all-out for Giuliani They are officially known as Rudy Giuliani's senior foreign policy advisory board, but they also could be dubbed something else: Neocons For Rudy. As in neoconservatives, the Republican faction that many see as among the most potent forces of Bush-era Washington - a well-funded, sharply analytical bunch that provided the ideological basis for invading Iraq and is now training its cross hairs on Iran. Many of its leaders now see Giuliani as the made-to-order candidate, or at least the best chance to perpetuate their influence, experts say. "Everything is still fluid. But I do think Giuliani is picking up a good bit of neoconservative support," said Peter Steinfels, co-director of the Fordham University Center on Religion and Culture and the author of "The Neoconservatives." That should come as no surprise given the history of the movement, Giuliani's record as mayor and his White House candidacy, experts add. Giuliani's neocon roster includes Norman Podhoretz, a founding father of the movement; Charles Hill, a former foreign policy official for President Ronald Reagan and early backer of invading Iraq; Martin Kramer, an expert on Islam at Harvard University and staunch defender of Israel, and Daniel Pipes, director of the hawkish Middle East Forum. Whether their embrace of Giuliani will turn out to be a good thing for the ex-mayor if he makes it to the general election remains to be seen. Some believe it could be more baggage than boost. The neoconservative label is used these days to describe an aggressive, go-it-alone approach to foreign affairs that provided President Bush with the logic for invading Iraq - a war 70% of Americans now oppose. "I don't think it is a vote-winner, frankly, because it is largely associated with failure at the moment," said Irwin Stelzer, author of "The Neocon Reader" and director of economic policy studies at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank. But there's more to neoconservatism than the war. The word refers to a movement that sprang from New York's upper West Side in the late '60s, led principally by ex-liberals who felt welfare policies had veered too far left. Irving Kristol, a movement founder, once defined neoconservative as a "liberal mugged by reality." On the foreign policy side, along with projecting a strong military posture abroad, neoconservatives are skeptical of international organizations, such as the United Nations, and ardently pro-Israel. All of which describes Giuliani. As mayor, he reveled in challenging liberal dogma, particularly on taxes, crime and welfare, and rarely missed a chance to slap the UN. And while virtually all the Republican candidates for President have staked out positions in favor of continuing the Iraq war, none have made security and the broader war on terror as dominant a theme as Giuliani. It comes as little surprise then, say experts, that Giuliani's team of foreign policy advisers includes some of neconservatism's heaviest hitters, chief among them Podhoretz. "I think Giuliani has a reasonable claim to the neoconservative mantle," said Stelzer. "And Norman is in the position to put the crown on anyone's head." Lately, Podhoretz and like-minded neocons have been clamoring for a military strike against Iran - a prospect Giuliani has said cannot be ruled out if diplomatic efforts to rein in the country's nuclear program fail. Hill, while acknowledging that he is often called a neocon, argued last week that Giuliani has moved "beyond labels" and is instead more of a pragmatist. "What, in my mind, differentiates Mayor Giuliani from the others is that he's a can-do guy," said Hill, who heads Giuliani's foreign policy board. "He is someone who knows that institutions or cities or international systems have a way of working, and have mechanisms. And his brilliance is in making things work."
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#2. To: Brian S (#0)
Rudy basically had one good idea. That was enforcing "quality of life" laws, like cracking down on prostitution, graffiti, littering, running stop lights, and so on. I lived in NYC at the time, and while I didn't vote for him, I agreed with that part of his administration. And it worked. People stopped urinating in public, tossing bags of garbage out on the street, etc., because suddenly it became possible a cop might do something about it. His "clean-up" of Times Square and other areas, though, came pretty close to fascism, as he took away property from some people and sold it cheap to others, like Disney. Apart from that, he didn't do much. He claims all sorts of things, but "saving" public transportation had been done under Dinkins, when about 2,000 vice presidents pulling down $200K a year were fired. That's where the money had been going all those years. Remaking himself as a neocon is not going to work. It might get him the nomination, but in the general election, he's going to get pounded. I think America is sick of pugnacious foreign policy, and the guy has so much sleaze in his background, he's going to be a punching bag.
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