The Washington Times, daily organ of the conservative movement, has an article today about how Giuliani’s recent comments about immigration have “alienate[d]” him from congressional Republicans and left him open to attacks from his presidential rivals. This isn’t surprising in itself — it’s the congressional wing of the GOP that has proven the most mouth-frothingly enthusiastic about the issue over the past two years — but it presents yet another difficulty for Giuliani as it puts him at odds with his own surrogate on immigration, Long Island Rep. Peter King.
At this point, outside of a handful of party intellectuals, the only Republicans who can perceive any benefit in not taking a hard line on the issue are in the Bush White House, and they’re increasingly politically irrelevant. It’s hard to say exactly why Giuliani is leaving himself vulnerable this way. Maybe he has some calculation in mind. Maybe he’s genuinely sticking to a principled position. Maybe he’s trying to avoid flip-flopping too obviously away from his record. Maybe he just goofed on Glenn Beck. But as a recent LA Times poll indicates, illegal immigration continues to obsess a significant portion of Republican primary voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — so it’s no wonder Mitt Romney is seizing the opportunity to attack.
Giuliani’s strategy has relied on using his national security credibility (however ill-deserved) to overcome base resistance to his “liberal” stances on social issues. But conservatives tend to see immigration itself as a security issue, and if Giuliani stands out too clearly as someone alienated from the right’s view of the question, he may find the very foundation of his appeal eroded.
4 Responses to “Immigration Trouble for Rudy”
This is of course just one of several examples of Giuliani needlessly provoking the same right-wing constituency he occasionally tries to pander to, without making any real points with moderates because, as with his comments about judicial appointees, he doesn’t really try to get a consistent message out to them. It’s often said that Bush is a master of dog-whistle politics — making comments that sound moderate and even bland to most people while secretly saying to the right wing of the party: I understand your needs, I am one of you. Giuliani seems to have mastered something else, which I would call ferret-whistle politics. He makes comments that sound moderate and even bland to most people, while secretely saying to the right wing of the party: You’re nuts, you need professional help. Why does he do it? Who knows? The guy just doesn’t like ferrets.
I would disagree that Giuliani sounds moderate a lot. At least, not on the campaign trail this year. This is obviously because he has to “out-winger” the other candidates, including Mitt “Double Gitmo/Double Gonzo” Romney.
Something to say?
the real truth is rudy said the exact same thing on illegal immigration that tancredo said, and i dont think anyone in the gop thinks tancredo is soft of illegal immigration. rudy stated the facts, and romney showed everyone he is too dumb to understand them.
the media is living for the fall of frontrunners, first mccain fell, now they are trying their best to engineer a rudy fall. not gonna happen. rudy will weather thompson’s announcement bump, score big in the oct 9 debate, and win the third quarter fund raising on the 15, embarassing thompson in the process.
and even more, what people seem to miss is that when you take mccain out of the race, almost all his support goes to rudy, adding some 10-15 points to rudy’s lead. gallup shows that when left one-on-one with thompson, rudy wins by 20 some points. even the newly leaked thompson memo has their internals showing rudy has steady support, while mccain and romney are falling. the biggest movement all week wasnt thompson’s bump, which was expected, but rudy cutting romeny’s lead in NH in half.
Left by matt
September 13, 2007 at 10:05am