One of my faves, The Smoking Gun reports on Americas Mayor:

Rudy Giuliani's Vulnerabilities
Secret study cited "weirdness factor" among candidate weaknesses

FEBRUARY 12--As he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani will have to contend with political and personal baggage unknown to prospective supporters whose knowledge of the former New York mayor is limited to his post-September 11 exploits.

So, in a bid to educate the electorate, we're offering excerpts from a remarkable "vulnerability study" that was commissioned by Giuliani's campaign prior to his successful 1993 City Hall run. The confidential 450-page report, authored by Giuliani's research director and another aide, was the campaign's attempt to identify possible lines of attack against Giuliani and prepare the candidate and his staff to counter "the kinds of no-holes-barred assault" expected in a general election rematch with Democratic incumbent David Dinkins.

As he tried to win election in an overwhelmingly Democratic city, Giuliani needed "inoculating against" the "Reagan Republican moniker," the vulnerability study reported. "The Giuliani campaign should emphasize its candidate's independence from traditional national Republican policies." The final six words of that sentence are underlined in the study.

Additionally, the Giuliani report noted that the candidate needed to make it clear to voters that he was "pretty good on most issues of concern to gay and lesbian New Yorkers" and was pro-choice and supported public funding for abortion. "He will continue city funding for abortions at city hospitals. Nothing more, nothing less." Giuliani's stance on these issues, of course, may leave him vulnerable today with an entirely different electorate.

The campaign study was obtained by The Village Voice's Wayne Barrett in the course of preparing "Rudy!," an investigative biography of Giuliani. In its preface, the study notes that it is "tough and hard-hitting. It pulls no punches." Perhaps that is why Giuliani, as Barrett reported, ordered copies of the vulnerability study destroyed shortly after it was circulated to top campaign aides. He surely could not have been pleased to read that his "personal life raises questions about a 'weirdness factor.'"

That weirdness, aides reported, stemmed from Giuliani's 14-year marriage to his second cousin, a union that he got annulled by claiming to have never received proper dispensation from the Catholic Church for the unorthodox nuptials. "When asked about his personal life, Giuliani gives a wide array of conflicting answers," the campaign report stated. "All of this brings the soundness of his judgement into question--and the veracity of his answers." The internal study also addresses prospective charges that Giuliani dodged the Vietnam draft and was a "man without convictions" because of his transformation from George McGovern voter to a Reagan-era Justice Department appointee. "In many ways Rudy Giuliani is a political contradiction...He doesn't really fit with the Republicans. Too liberal. Giuliani has troubles with the Democrats, too."

On the following pages, you'll find the vulnerability report's cover and preface and sections on Reagan Republicanism, women and abortion, Giuliani's first marriage and divorce, draft dodging, gay issues, racial polarization, and his party registration "flip-flop." (27 pages)

Selected Reading from the document:

[Abortion] http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0212072giuliani6.html

[marriage] http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0212072giuliani11.html

[Gay Issues] http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0212072giuliani23.html

There is more: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0212072giuliani1.html

Unelectable.

kskd, I usually read most everything you post and/or quote but this one huge block of unbroken text is just a bit much!

"He surely could not have been pleased to read that his "personal life raises questions about a 'weirdness factor.'" That weirdness, aides reported, stemmed from Giuliani's 14-year marriage to his second cousin, a union that he got annulled by claiming to have never received proper dispensation from the Catholic Church for the unorthodox nuptials."

Once again, a glorious feast from Missing!

Hmmm...

You fellows with the big ears and trunk better find Ron Paul's phone number. Oh, you lost it during the filibuster? Check that pile under the desk. Oh, you found something? Let's see it.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul-arch.html

Only one electable Republican left in the nation and nobody knows who he is yet.

Can't have that...

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion; or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
-- The First Amendment

"Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it."
-- Mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York Newsday 4/20/98

"Imagine standing on a city street viewing a sidewalk display of paintings and discussing them with the artist. Suddenly, two vans and a police car pull up. Twenty armed, bulletproof-vested plainclothes cops jump out, surround the artist, place them in handcuffs, confiscate all of the paintings and push the artist into the van. When you ask what the problem is the police tell you it’s a “quality of life” operation, just shut up and keep walking. Is this happening in China or Iraq? No, it’s just a typical day in New York City, the artist persecution capital of the world.

In the art and free speech capital of the world artists are being demonized as "parasites" in order to justify ruthlessly eliminating them from the streets. Previous to this policy, sidewalk art displays were viewed as a cultural asset. New York City actually advertised the presence of street artists in travel magazines. The police were instructed not to arrest artists and that a visual artist selling his or her own art didn't require a license, based on First Amendment freedom of speech."

-- Robert Lederman, artist

(Lederman's essays and letters have appeared in the NY Times, NY Post, Daily News, Newsday, Brooklyn Bridge, Park Slope Courier, The Daily Challenge, Amsterdam News, Sandbox, Our Town, NY Press and are available on hundreds of websites around the world.)

Giuliani Attacks Artists & Vendors and the Fallout:
http://hellskitchen.net/issues/bids/artist.html
http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
http://urban.hunter.cuny.edu/~tangotti/art3.html
http://www.downtownexpress.com/DE_14/vendorsandcity.html
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20040320/200/923
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_168/streetartisthave.html
http://www.streetvendor.org
Also see:
NY Times 6/2/98 "Street Vendors Say First Amendment Rights Threatened" By Mike Allen; Newsday 6/1/98 “More Vendors Curbed / Rudy aide: Food rules hit art, books, papers”, by Dan Janison.; Newsday 4/20/98 cover story “Under Giuliani City Has Repeatedly Stifled Dissent”; N.Y. Times 5/7/98 “For Giuliani, A Different Big Picture”; NY Times 5/24/98, “Giuliani Plans to Prohibit Food Vending in Wide Area”.; NY Times 5/31/98 “Vendors Face a New Round of Street Bans”

Giuliani Attacks The Brooklyn Museum and the Fallout:
http://www.nyfa.org/archive_detail_q.asp?type=1&qid=64&fid=6&year=2000&s=Winter
http://www.artsjournal.com/issues/Brooklyn.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1172837.stm
http://www.ncac.org/art/19990101~NY~Giuliani_Decency.cfm
http://www.nyed.uscourts.gov/pub/rulings/cv/1999/99cv6071.pdf

Rudy. I suspect that he probably respects the first of our Bill of Rights about as much as he respects the rest of them.

I am not perhaps the biggest fan of much of the street art I have seen in my life. Still, I believe that if somebody, especially a native of a city, has talent to share, they ought to be able to share it. They ought to get a bit of the investment back, and it ought to be their right. Especially in the Big Apple, a city where it is an established tradition. A city often considered the cradle of the America's artists.

Looking at history, artists tend to be the canaries in the coalmine. Minorities are usually singled out first, so if it is affecting free expression, you can be assured it has been going on behind the scenes for much longer than you suspected.

Some of the street artists -- of the 700+ arrested -- had college degrees and a rabid collector following. Some of the vendors shut down had provided for their families for generations. This was not simply a stinky trust fund kid with dreadlocks and crayons, or a rotten hot dog stand issue. It was about making New York into a yuppie shangri-la by all means necessary. I always thought that was what Connecticut was for, but I guess that is so 20th century. :0)

(Please forgive all the edits, it has been awhile since much of this happened and I had to Google and dig into what might still be out there -- thankfully, quite a bit.)

The latest from Bloomberg on America's king of photo opportunities shows that he was busy digging for gold and not our fallen heroes:

"Mayor Giuliani's actions meant that fire fighters and citizens who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill," said union President Harold Schaitberger in a draft letter to affiliates."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a8o5p2XiTQhk&refer=home