You've Heard The Pitch, Now It's Time For The Theme

For some reason I can't find the story anywhere else but the New York Sun. But it's a good read -- Rudy Giuliani is trying to recast the Republican Party into the "Party of Freedom." Here's The Theme, articulated to leaders of the Hoover Institution:

On the economy, Giuliani says that Democrats will raise taxes to pay for (among other things) the war. "That shows a dividing line, and to me, a misunderstanding of how our economy works," adding that to him, it appears that Democrats "really believe, honest, that it is essentially a government economy." (Note: He's attacking Democrats here, not his primary opponents. Sounds like a front-runner for the nomination to me.)

Giuliani is also opposed to a universal health care system, at least one along the "single-payer" model proposed by Senator Clinton: "That would be a terrible, terrible mistake. There have to be free market solutions. They have to be a competitive system."

Regarding education, Giuliani pointed to school choice programs enacted under his leadership in New York, claiming that taking on the public school system is not the same thing as trying to dismantle it. This remains a controversial part of his legacy as mayor, of course, but it's probably about the most pro-active thing that can be done to reform an education system that, if not necessarily failing, is still leaving a lot of kids behind.

On the war: "We have to say to the rest of the world, 'America doesn't like war,' ... America is not a military country. We've never been a militaristic country." But then, he criticized the current administration as having committed an "analytical warp" by calling it the "war on terrorism" rather than a "war of the terrorists against us." See what he's doing there? If it were Bill Clinton, we'd call that "triangulation" -- thing is, this doesn't sound like bullshit the way it did when Clinton did it.

When challenged by a Hoover Overseer about his foreign policy credentials in a more general sense, a quick New York wit came into play: "What makes you think that the mayor of New York City doesn't need a foreign policy?" After referring to the tremendous diversity of the city and the need to deal with the diplomats who inhabit it, he then discussed his experience with Giuliani Partners doing security consulting around the world and a multiplicity of international trips related to his work after his service as Mayor of New York was complete. He claims as much foreign policy experience as anyone else running for President. While there may be exceptions, for the most part that's true.

Now, if any of this sounds like someone else who managed to take control of the Republican Party from its entrenched old-guard leadership, changed the direction of the party and excited the nation while doing it, and subsequently provided leadership that defined an era, well, that's all for the good, too. As the Sun further opines today, that old guard may be as much of a liability as an asset. Nevertheless, Rudy is trying to gracefully realign the coalition of interest groups that is the GOP -- while this faction may no longer be as prominent as it has been of late, it does seem that Rudy's going out of his way to remind them that even if they're not likely to call all the shots anymore after the Bush Administration ends, they'll still have a prominent place at the table if they're willing to be team players.

I'm excited about this candidacy like I haven't been excited about a politician for a very long time. And it's early, subject to a lot of change, and driven at this stage of the game by name recognition more than anything else, but the numbers are there to win it all -- for proof, check out this article in Time.