Rudy Giuliani Watch: Rudy Down South in South Carolina

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, seen here during a New Hampshire event last month, told a reporter Saturday there is “a real good chance” he will run for president.

Johathan Martin’s Blog: Rudy Down South

Rudy is down in South Carolina today, making his pitch to Palmetto State Republicans. He spoke to the SC GOP’s Executive Committee (state party leaders and top activists from each of the state’s 46 counties) and the state’s Federation of Republican Women (FRW). A Republican source unaffiliated with any of the 2008 contenders attended both and says that the moderate former mayor seemed to have won a lot of conservative SC Republicans over.

Seeking to appeal to the fiscally conservative audiences, Hizzoner devoted considerable time to his record of cutting taxes in NYC, the source said. But Giuliani also talked about judges, and how he admired the judicial temperament of the two justices President Bush has appointed to the Supreme Court, Alito and Roberts. Such talk was assumedly his way of calming social conservatives who may be wary of Giuliani’s liberal social views. But Giuliani, I’m told, did not avoid topics like abortion, gay rights or guns. At both venues, he ended his remarks by imploring the crowd to bring on the questions about such matters. He was asked about abortion and guns at the FRW event. On the former, he said he was personally opposed to the procedure but didn’t want to go down the road of imprisoning women who have an abortion. On the latter, he said he viewed gun rights as a matter best left for states to decide.

Obviously Hizzoner is NOT avoiding social conservative issues and like the rest of his persona tells it like he feels.

No Apolgoies, No Flip-Flops, No Explanations

Remember Giuliani worked in the Department of Justice for many years when Ronald Reagan was President.

In 1981, Giuliani was named Associate Attorney General in the Reagan Administration, placing him in the third-highest position in the Department of Justice. As Associate Attorney General, Giuliani supervised all of the US Attorney Offices’ Federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Corrections, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the United States Marshals Service.

In 1983, Giuliani was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was in this position that he first gained national prominence by prosecuting numerous high-profile cases, including the successful prosecutions of Wall Street figures Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken for insider trading. He also spearheaded the effort to jail drug dealers, combat organized crime, break the web of corruption in government, and prosecute white-collar criminals. He amassed a record of 4,152 convictions with only 25 reversals.

It was in 1983 that Giuliani indicted financiers Marc Rich and Pincus Green on charges of tax evasion and making illegal oil deals with Iran during the hostage crisis, in one of the first cases in which the RICO Act was employed in a non-organized crime case. Rich and Green fled the United States to avoid prosecution; both were controversially pardoned by the executive order of President Bill Clinton in 2001.

Today in South Carolina, while addressing the South Carolina GOP Mayor Giuliani had this to say about the appointment of federal judges:

Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Judges
SC GOP Executive Committee Meeting – February 3, 2007

On the Federal judiciary I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am. I’m a lawyer. I’ve argued cases in the Supreme Court. I’ve argued cases in the Court of Appeals in different parts of the country. I have a very, very strong view that for this country to work, for our freedoms to be protected, judges have to interpret not invent the Constitution. Otherwise you end up, when judges invent the constitution, with your liberties being hurt. Because legislatures get to make those decisions and the legislature in South Carolina might make that decision one way and the legislature in California a different one. And that’s part of our freedom and when that’s taken away from you that’s terrible. President Bush has the great model because I think as the President he did appointed some really good ones and both of them are former colleagues of mine – Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. Justice Scalia is a former colleague of mine. Somebody that â€¦ I think Chief Justice Roberts is a great chief justice and he’s young and he can have a long career and that’s probably the reason the President and Vice President chose him. I think those are the kinds of justices I would appoint â€“ Scalia, Alito and Roberts. If you can find anybody as good as that, you are very, very fortunate.

Captain Ed has Rudy On Judges

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And the latest South Carolina Presidential poll is available. It shows a very close race within the margin of statistical error with McCain maintaining a small edge. Mitt Romney does break into double digits and finishes fourth.

The poll is here.

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Should photos, audio and/or video become available, Flap will update this post.

Stay tuned…..