Noting September 11 Leadership, New York Republicans Back Giuliani
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Mayor Giuliani’s White House bid has won the endorsement of prominent state Republicans, who invoked his stewardship of New York City following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
“New York is Rudy territory,” a former state Republican party chairman, Bill Powers, said yesterday.
Mr. Giuliani and his supporters cast the 2008 presidential election as a battle for America’s values and national security.
“The lessons of the 20th century, to me, are that you never, ever back down in the face of bullies, dictators, tyrants, and terrorists,” Mr. Giuliani said. “You remain on offense against them.”
Like Mr. Giuliani, virtually every speaker yesterday touched on the Giuliani campaign’s top two issues that bolster his GOP bona fides — lowering taxes and fighting terrorism — and eschewed the social conservative issues such as abortion and gay rights that have divided Republican support.
Securing America from terrorists is one of the primary ways Mr. Giuliani is appealing to voters. He said yesterday that voters would ultimately decide who best represents Republican values.
“When people say, ‘Well, is this what the Republican Party believes or is that what the Republican Party believes, or are you a Republican,’ … I don’t get to dictate who’s in the Republican Party and neither does anybody else,” Mr. Giuliani said.
Supporters of Mr. Giuliani also promised to draw on the former mayor’s candidacy to help heal the Empire State’s badly bruised Republican party, which last week held its first committee fund-raising dinner in almost a decade.
“Today, from Staten Island to Schenectady and Bay Ridge to Buffalo, the entire Republican team is now going to place its trust to ensure that Rudy Giuliani becomes the next president of the United States,” Rep. Vito Fossella said.
Yesterday’s endorsements signaled the end of many of Mr. Giuliani’s quarrels with the state party.
Absent yesterday from the “entire Republican team” in a Midtown Sheraton ballroom were several prominent New York Republicans, including Governor Pataki — Mr. Giuliani endorsed Mr. Pataki’s Democratic opponent in the 1994 gubernatorial race — as well as Mr. Pataki’s political mentor, Senator D’Amato, whose bad blood with Mr. Giuliani goes back almost two decades, when the two clashed over who would succeed Mr. Giuliani as Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor.
