Nel primo decennio del Ventunesimo secolo, gli Stati Uniti hanno dovuto far fronte al più mortale degli attacchi e al più distruttivo dei disastri naturali nella storia del Paese. Il termine «sicurezza interna» (homeland security) non era sul tavolo del dibattito nazionale delle elezioni del Duemila. Ora, dopo l’11 settembre e l’uragano Katrina, ogni americano comprende che la sicurezza interna è al centro delle responsabilità di un presidente...

Secondo i rapporti ufficiali, ci sono stati non meno di 14 tentativi d’attacco terroristico interno e nove complotti internazionali contro interessi e cittadini americani. C’è stato un piano per far saltare il ponte di Brooklyn e alcuni aerei sulla rotta atlantica. Dei terroristi hanno cospirato per ammazzare soldati americani a Fort Dix e pianificato di incendiare i condotti del carburante all’aeroporto internazionale Jfk. Ad oggi, non un singolo complotto «post 9/11» sul suolo statunitense ha avuto successo. Non è un caso: è la misura, a livello nazionale, dell’aumento dei controlli.

Continua a leggere l'articolo di Rudy Giuliani pubblicato su Liberal Quotidiano.

To the extent that I understand how most Republicans think, it would seem that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani comes closer to the Republican ideal than any of the other viable Republican candidates. They are all good and decent men who would be better for America than either of the Democratic front-runners. But it is difficult to see, from a conservative- and Republican-values perspective, what major shortcoming Giuliani brings as compared to the other candidates. And given the obsession of liberal news media with publishing negative reports about Giuliani and frequent praise of John McCain, it would appear that it is Giuliani whom Democrats most fear as the Republican presidential nominee.

Leggi tutto l'articolo di Dennis Prager su Real Clear Politics.

via Phastidio.net

Giuliani insegue il voto ispanico nel Sud della Florida.

The Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee today announced that accomplished actor Jon Voight has endorsed Rudy Giuliani for President of the United States and will campaign on his behalf in both Florida and California later this month. Voight, who earned both an Oscar and Golden Globe for his role as a quadriplegic Vietnam Veteran in the 1978 movie “Coming Home” and numerous nominations for other roles, has been a powerful presence on the silver screen for almost four decades.

“America is approaching one of its most important elections in history and we must elect a leader with the strength and resolve of Rudy Giuliani,” said Voight. “His commitment to keeping our military strong and his track record of transforming New York makes him the right man at the right time for our country.”

Endorsement di Jon Voight per Rudy.

MIAMI – “Florida is Rudy Country,’’ the new signs and stickers say hopefully. Rudolph W. Giuliani, trying to put his humbling losses in Iowa and New Hampshire behind him, kicked off a three-day-bus tour of his must-win state – providing a second bus for journalists to follow him for only the second time this year – by speaking about his relationship with God at El Rey Jesus, an evangelical mega-church and riding a fire truck along the route of the Three Kings Parade in Little Havana.

Mr. Giuliani, who in the past has tended to keep his faith private, quoted the Bible and opened up about religion at the church, where he gave a sermon-like version of his stump speech, and at one point clapped along as the choir rapped “I’m somewhere in the future and I look much better than I do right now’’ to a hip-hop beat. “I have deep respect for the power of faith,’’ Mr. Giuliani said at the church. “I received a religious education for most of my life, until the time I attended law school. And as you realize, law school is not a religious education.’’

“But up until then I started every day of class making the sign of the cross, praying to Jesus, praying to Mary and asking for help, asking for assistance, and it built into my very being an understanding that we have to pray for help, that we have to pray for guidance, we have to pray to seek God’s will, and we have to pray to make us better people, to live the life that God wants for us,’’ he said. Giuliani supporters along the parade route in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood. And Mr. Giuliani, ho is distributing fliers here talking about his faith, as he did in Iowa but not in New Hampshire, said that the seeing the church reminded him of “how faith can transform lives, making families stronger, making communities better, giving people of despair, hope, and giving people a much better understanding of what life is really all about: service to God, and service to others.’’

(...) Mr. Giuliani continues to place all his hopes on winning Florida’s primary on Jan. 29 – which has left him somewhat marginalized both by his distant losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, and by the fact that the other Republican are taking up most of the political oxygen with their hard-fought contests in Michigan and South Carolina. Mr. Giuliani drew a healthy crowd at a senior center in Bradenton on Saturday night, and got a warm reception at the parade in Little Miami (...).

At times Mr. Giuliani seemed to joke about his circumstances. At a dinner in Port Charlotte on Saturday night, he was urging the audience to vote early – Florida permits early voting, beginning Monday – when a woman in the audience called out, “I already voted, by absentee ballot.’’“Do I have a vote?’’ he asked, and as she indicated that he did, he said: “At least I won’t get wiped out! That’s great!” On Sunday morning, in the church, he spoke about his campaign as “a test of faith’’ And his strategy of waiting for a late win is testing the faith of some supporters. “I’m running for president of the United States,’’ he said. “It is marathon, not a sprint. And in many ways it’s a test of strength, and it’s a test of faith. The Bible reminds us, Joshua 10:25, fear not, be strong and of good courage. That’s the way to face the future. Whatever is ahead, we don’t know. Anything can be challenging us. Good, bad, difficult. But if we believe in God, fear not, be strong, and of good courage, that is the way to provide real leadership.”

“That’s what I’ve strived to do all of my life,’’ he said. “I’ve faced odds that were at times seemingly impossible. Situations where people had given up hope. But we didn’t Listen to the doubters. We didn’t listen to the naysayers. You know how many of them there are: it can’t be done, it hasn’t been done before, we can’t handle
this, we can’t accomplish this, no one’s ever done it before. Oh, there are so many that are naysayers. But don’t listen to them. Don’t pay attention to them. Fear not, be strong, and of good courage.’’

Michael Cooper, The Caucus (NYT).

Il taglio alle tasse proposto da Giuliani rappresenterebbe un gigantesco salto in avanti per i contribuenti americani e per l'economia degli Stati Uniti. In particolare, il taglio della corporate income tax e dei capital gain sarebbe esattamente quello di cui abbiamo bisogno per evitare una fase di recessione. In più, il piano di tagli alle tasse proposto da Giuliani porterebbe alla creazione di un sistema alternativo (FAST: Fair and Simple Tax) che potrebbe, di anno in anno, essere scelto dalle famiglie americane e dai piccoli imprenditori; un sistema a tre aliquote (con quella massima al 30%) basato soltanto sulle deduzioni più utilizzate. La maggior parte degli americani, se liberi di scegliere questo sistema semplificato, opterebbero per esso senza più tornare indietro. Per anni Hong Kong ha utilizzato un sistema fiscale alternativo di questo tipo e la maggioranza dei cittadini lo ha utilizzato con soddisfazione.

Il presidente e fondatore degli Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist (*), commenta entusiasticamente il piano di riforma fiscale presentato, qualche giorno fa, da Rudy Giuliani. E, sul sito di ATR, comunica che Giuliani (a differenza di John McCain, Fred Thompson e di tutti i candidati democratici) ha firmato il pledge con cui si impegna ad opporsi a qualsiasi aumento delle tasse se eletto presidente. Secondo Norquist, il piano di Rudy porterebbe "al più grande taglio delle tasse nella storia americana" ed è il progetto "pro-growth" più convincente tra tutti quelli presentati dai candidati repubblicani alla presidenza.

Insieme al giudizio estremamente positivo degli Americans for Tax Reform, è arrivato anche l'appoggio del Club for Growth. Il presidente del think-tank liberista di Washington, Pat Tooney, ha diffuso un comunicato ufficiale in cui definisce il piano di Giuliani "una proposta coraggiosa ed innovativa che ricompensa il lavoro e il merito, incoraggia gli investimenti e promuove la crescita ecomomica degli Stati Uniti".

(*) Per chi non avesse idea di chi sia Grover Norquist e di quale sia stata la sua influenza nella crescita, politica e culturale, della destra americana, vi invitiamo a leggere un nostro articolo, dal titolo "A lezione di fusionismo", pubblicato circa un anno fa su Ideazione in occasione di una visita del presidente di ATR a Roma.

Cross-posted @ The Right Nation

My man Rudy Giuliani got smoked in the Republican Iowa caucuses: 4% of the vote, nowhere.Yet as the smoke clears, it’s going to become apparent that Rudy was the night’s big winner. Here’s why.

The actual Republican winner, Mike Huckabee, cannot win his party’s nomination. Huckabee’s strong social conservatism played well in Iowa, where 60% of Republicans say they attend church every week.Outside Iowa, Huckabee will encounter a much less churchy party. Economic conservatives are dismayed by Huckabee’s record as governor of Arkansas: the fifth worst in the nation according to the libertarian Cato Institute.

Security voters worry about Huckabee’s frequent stumbles in foreign affairs. Huckabee’s immediate reaction to the Bhutto assassination was to call for American “apologies” to the people of Pakistan. His campaign later embarrassedly explained that he had meant to convey only “condolences” — not to imply that the United States was somehow culpable in the killing.The race now moves to New Hampshire, where a majority of Republicans want abortion to remain legal. Huckabee will do well to finish fourth in the Granite State.

If Huckabee’s Iowa win did him little enduring good, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s Iowa defeat does him severe and probably irrecoverable harm.Romney staked his entire campaign on a big Iowa win. He repositioned himself on the issues to appeal to Iowa’s social conservatives. He spent lavishly: at least $7 million, as compared to Huckabee’s $1.4 million. And yet Romney was crushed by Huckabee, 34%-25%.

Badly damaged, Romney now proceeds to New Hampshire. New Hampshire adjoins Massachusetts. These are Romney’s neighbors, practically his constituents. If he cannot win there, he cannot win anywhere. And Romney is running an average of two points behind John McCain.

So is it then McCain who triumphed in Iowa? That’s certainly the impression you would get from the national media, who adore the maverick war hero. McCain won the New Hampshire primary in 2000, and he will probably win again in 2008. His quirky independent politics suit a state whose license plates urge: “Life Free or Die.”Yet McCain faces severe constraints outside New Hampshire. He still polls at less than 20% among Republicans nationwide. Many Republicans remember that McCain nearly accepted the Democratic vice presidential nomination in 2004. Despite McCain’s strong pro-life record, the National Right to Life Committee endorsed Fred Thompson for 2008.

Above all, Republicans remember McCain’s authorship of the detested McCain-Kennedy immigration amnesty — and McCain’s harsh condemnation of those conservatives who opposed him. 28% of Republicans rate immigration as the top issue, more than any other. For these Republicans, McCain is on the wrong side.Nor can McCain realistically hope to get any momentum out of New Hampshire. In the next primary (Michigan, Jan. 15) he polls a distant third. He ranks fourth in the primary after that (South Carolina, Jan. 19). And because McCain’s campaign is broke, he will have difficulty competing in the big, expensive media-market states that vote after January 29.

So who does that leave? Not Fred Thompson. He finished a dismal third in Iowa — and his aides are already telling journalists he will soon quit the race. No, it leaves Rudy. Rudy’s campaign has gone badly in recent weeks. He dropped 10 points among Republicans in early December, damaged by allegations that he had improperly billed city agencies for security costs on visits to his future wife. The allegations have since been disproven and retracted, but the mayor’s standing has not yet recovered.

Still, Giuliani continues to poll first among Republicans nationwide. Republicans rate him the most electable of the candidates. He and McCain are the only two candidates who beat Hillary or Obama in head-to-head poll match-ups. Rudy is the most popular Republican in New Jersey, a must-win state for the GOP in 2008.

With Thompson sunk or sinking, with Romney faltering and listing, it is Rudy who has the best chance to position himself as a viable alternative to the unelectable Huckabee. But a chance is all he has, not a certainty.Giuliani faces one severe obstacle to the nomination: He is pro-choice in a pro-life party. He cannot afford a second obstacle. Giuliani has to move now to align himself with the Republican voting majority on the immigration-reform issue. Immigration is a huge concern for Republicans in South Carolina — and given Huckabee’s dismal record on illegal immigration, the issue offers Giuliani a chance to do well in what might otherwise look like a natural Huckabee state.

If Giuliani can beat the odds in South Carolina, he will be superbly positioned to start amassing big delegate totals in Florida, California and New Jersey, when those huge states come into play in February.The Clash have a song: Rudie can’t fail. That’s going too far. But after Iowa, no Republican has a better chance to succeed.

David Frum, National Post.

The biggest beneficiary of the Huckabee win in Iowa is not Huckabee, it's Rudy. The biggest beneficiary of a McCain win in New Hampshire would be Rudy. Romney's strategy was to win Iowa and New Hampshire. He has now lost Iowa. Rudy is waiting to pounce in the next tier of states. That has always been his strategy.

Mark R. Levin, The Corner (NRO).