[quote]pookie wrote:
100meters wrote:
Rudy can’t win debates now against fairly unintelligent men, coming again and again to 9/11, not grasping basic issues (taxes) etc… and a track record that won’t seem all to different me thinks?
If he gets the nomination, he’ll probably get a better team of speech writers and enough spin doctors to train him on proper public behavior.
Bush was elected twice, almost legitimately. Anything is possible.
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[quote]100meters wrote:
pookie wrote:
100meters wrote:
Rudy can’t win debates now against fairly unintelligent men, coming again and again to 9/11, not grasping basic issues (taxes) etc… and a track record that won’t seem all to different me thinks?
If he gets the nomination, he’ll probably get a better team of speech writers and enough spin doctors to train him on proper public behavior.
Bush was elected twice, almost legitimately. Anything is possible.
sadly, so true (anything is possible)[/quote]
reality check kids, Bush was re elected with more legitimacy than Bubba.
Ok, maybe you’re right, to me it seems Rudy doesn’t have the depth to answer a broad range of questions without coming back to 9/11 over and over again…example 9/11 brought him back to the 2nd amendment?[/quote]
I suspect this is because you hear what you prefer.
I have heard Giuliani discuss, at length, tax policy (as mayor of NYC, a ton of his reform was on tax issues) and free trade (especially the importance of free trade with China, which I disagree with him on in parts).
Rudy is not really my guy for 08, but he can talk policy just fine.
But, isn’t it more fun to say “Rudy dumb!”…“US voters dumb!”…“but I am smart!”
Rudy is formidable, but Clinton can talk policy really well. I’d love to see a legitimate policy debate in the 08 election - hell, I’d like to see it around here.
I think the point with Rudy is that without 9/11, he wouldn’t even have been considered as a candidate.
The other point is that many, if not most of his views on other issues align more on the left side of the aisle. Abortion, gun-control, gay rights, etc. He definitely has (or had, maybe he’s “adapted”) the most liberal views of all the Republican candidates on these issues. If not for his pro-war stance - unavoidably linked to his “tough on terrorism” stance, but ironically probably his weakest point, one which NY mayorship has given him no experience with - he’d probably be running for the Democratic nomination.
His personal history, many marriages and propensity for cross-dressing are also things that won’t play very well for the more conservatives Republicans, who pride themselves on their morality and their expectation of it from their elected representative.
But the Democrats have yet to meet a victory they can’t snatch defeat from the jaws of, so… anything is possible. (Ok, the construction of that last sentence really sucks.)
[quote]Magnate wrote:
I think you’re overestimating the importance of political debates to the American public. [/quote]
They should redo the formula in the form of “Presidential Idol”
Every week, the contestants participate in a thematic event (lying convincingly, catering to corporate interests, misusing the military, wasting taxpayer money, alienating former allies, etc.) and then people can phone in their votes to see who stays and who goes.
[quote]orion wrote:
War is the most socialist endeavour there is.
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and yet completely acceptable by even the most vehement critics of socialism…oh, the irony!
[quote]pookie wrote:
I think the point with Rudy is that without 9/11, he wouldn’t even have been considered as a candidate.
[/quote]
and without bill, hillary wouldn’t be considered.