Rudy Giuliani is working hard to do things: become president and look like a Republican. To look like a Republican, he needs to work back to what classic Republican stands are and use the vocabulary to impress those who like to call themselves Republican.
He is already working against conservative voters with his pro-choice views, as well as his relatively complicit positions regarding gays. He stands by those views with conviction. He hasn't helped himself by his marital affairs and divorce. So he is doing what he needs to in order to win the conservative hearts: attack Hillary, and say, "I'm not a Democrat looking to weasel into your lives."
By ranting the tax-and-spend line, he is saying he is really Republican.
Hillary Clinton ranted back by saying Giuliani is just like her in many regards, but not enough to be presidential.
This is all vagaries now, jockeying for media image rather than real issues. Hillary needs to be seen as still the top contender, while Rudy must lift himself back to the top. Both candidates are facing questions of electability, followed by hard-charging competition in Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.
Giuliani outlines tax plan, blasts Democrats
Boston Globe
By Philip Elliott, AP Writer
August 25, 2007
MANCHESTER, N.H. --Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani on Saturday said Democrats would raise taxes and brutalize the economy if they win the 2008 presidential election.
"'We must take things away from you for the common good,'" Giuliani said, mocking Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a top contender for her party's nomination.
"Do you understand what that implies? No, it's not Karl Marx. What she's saying in that is that 'We know better, the government knows better.'"
In contrast, Giuliani said he would lower taxes, make permanent President Bush's tax cuts and eliminate inheritance taxes.
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