- Just because it's a dumb and self destructive idea doesn't mean the republicans won't do it. In that way, nominating Rudy is in the same league as invading Iraq, or invading Iran, or standing foursquare behind Gonzales.
- Rudy's got the Daddy role all figured out. He's naturally authoritarian and will supply the proto-fascist yearnings of the republican party with all the slapping around that they want.
- Rudy's background as the sarcastic, bullying Mayor is going make him even MORE popular among republicans. Audio of Rudy chewing out going apeshit over a NY citizen asking about ferrets sounds made Rudy sound like a sociopath to me. To republicans, it will sound like a strong leader riding herd on a bunch of city people, meaning, yelling at liberals and gays and immigrants and poor people and blacks and telling them to STFU. Republicans witll love it. They want someone to impose some discipline on New Yorkers and ALL the blue people. And Rudy's done it.
- As Daddy, his National Security Great Leader role will also come into play. Yes, it's true, his role on 9/11 was mostly watching someone else be brave. Yes, it's his bad planning in putting NYC's disaster command center under the WTC that caused him to be standing on the street in the first place. Yes, he was a prosecutor but now he's on the team that says prosecutions and law enforcment and warrants are worse than useless as tools, arguing that they just get in the way. So yes, it's true, he's really not the guy who should be planning our anti terror attacks.
But you can't misunderestimate the desire of republicans to have a warrior leader and capacity to build a legend. Bush became a hero of 9/11 by showing up in a clean pair of pants after hiding days on military bases. He shouted through a bullhorn a bunch of stuff about bringing people to justice that he never accomplished, but it doesn't hurt him any among republicans. In comparison, Rudy is an easy mold into some faux hero story.
- The personal stuff for Giuliani is handled by fact it's okay when they do it, and by him paying homage to right wing morality going forward, that is, demonstrating that this wife is his last one and constitutionally and legally he's intolerant. If the fact of the republicans are asserting that the most moral politicians around include the first cokehead president, the first divorced president, the first presidnet to not even pretend to go to church on Sunday tells us anything, it's that personal morality doesn't matter to them.
The desire for an authority figure will trump the personal, or make his true personality irrelevant. The very need for an authoritarian leader means HE tells YOU what is acceptable, not the other way around. I mean, a truly great man doesn't live like you and I. He is BEYOND all that. The more they want an authority figure, the more they will stifle, the more they will conform their ideals to Rudy's life.
- As to the flip flopping on social issues, I think that the right wing has got to be reassured by the complete lack of hesitance by Rudy to throw any semblance of consistency overboard. As I said in my anti rudy diary yesterday, there's no chance there's any princple that would keep Rudy from handing the entire domestic agenda over to Jerry Falwell.
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