Bye bye, Rudy

Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination after a poor showing in Florida, and thus the man who led national polls for months played no role in Super Tuesday aside from supporting Sen. John McCain. For that, his awkward campaign strategy will likely be regarded as one of the most flawed in history. \nThat being said, Giuliani, for all the high aspirations some may have had for him, is not someone I will miss. \nWho was Giuliani anyway? Because he is a Republican from New York, one could possibly say he was still to the left of the average American. Rudy believed in gay rights, was pro-choice and pro-gun control and yet still managed to be a contender for the GOP nomination. He also managed to clean up New York City when it was considered by many to be ungovernable. His combination of economic conservatism and social liberalism should have been right up my alley. \nThere are many reasons he was not. He has a secretive and vindictive style. It’s also not clear how much credit he deserves for New York City’s turnaround. The major reason, however, involves how he abused the event most associated with himself, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.\nGiuliani has mostly run on a foreign policy that is apocalyptic but not terribly impressive.\nIn many ways, it’s just repackaged Bush policy. Giuliani emphasizes the risks of dealing with hostile regimes diplomatically and stresses that we should not put unrealistic constraints on intelligence gathering.\nHis foreign policy is also a reflection of neoconservative orthodoxy. He still thinks Iraq was a good call, and he even goes so far as to suggest that the U.S. was on the verge of winning in Vietnam. \nHe does not address the inconsistencies of some of the Bush administration’s policies. He continues to suggest that civilization itself is under attack by radical Islamists without saying anything about our close ties to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, all countries in which democracy and other freedoms are suppressed by more secular means.\nHe appears ambivalent about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When he outlined his views for the publication Foreign Affairs, he had the gall to suggest that Palestinians had to earn statehood but then started his next paragraph with “The next president must champion human rights and speak out when they are violated.”\nGiuliani epitomizes the part of the Republican Party that seeks to build a new electoral consensus around the “war on terror.” Politicians, as a rule, have a tendency to care more about getting elected than they do about getting policy right, and Giuliani knew that his appeals to what he calls “the 9-11 generation” were getting him votes.\nIf global terrorism is bringing many challenges, it’s clear that one of them is the challenge voters now have to face in differentiating between politicians who offer real solutions and those who are just savvy political entrepreneurs seeking to inspire shallow patriotism.