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Vice President Rudy Giuliani?

According to Joseph Farah at WorldNetDaily, “[t]here are whispers among high-level political advisers to President Bush suggesting the possibility of replacing Dick Cheney with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as the vice presidential running mate prior to the Republican National Convention in New York beginning Aug. 30.” (WorldNetDaily: Giuliani to replace Cheney on ticket? 6/9/04)

This isn’t actually that new of a rumor, it was mentioned by an MSNBC gossip columnist back in January. She said Cheney would use his poor health as an excuse for leaving, so as not to make Bush look like the bad guy for kicking out a loyal servant. (MSNBC: Will Giuliani replace Cheney in ’04? 1/27/04)

As a side note, the New York Post mentioned a few days ago the possibility that Giuliani will replace George Tenet as head of the CIA. Obviously, he can’t fill both rolls at the same time. (NY Post: GIULIANI COULD BE WAITING IN THE WINGS 6/3/04)

If George Bush does make this vice presidential switch, it’s because he’s desperate. His ratings in the polls keep going down and down, and he’s in danger of facing the same fate as his father in 1992: two Bushes who had huge approval ratings after going to war against Iraq, but unable to do anything to get the public to like them after fighting the war.

According to today’s New York Times, the Kurds are threatening to walk away from the Iraqi state. And I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t want to be part of a country run by Shiites either. Would you? If the Shiites and Kurds part ways, it would certainly have a big negative impact on Bush’s reelection chances. (NY Times: Kurds Threaten to Walk Away From Iraqi State )

It’s no wonder that the Bush team is considering a big shake-up like this. Will Giuliani be able to turn around the campaign? Maybe. Giuliani is a very popular politician with a lot of charisma. He’s so popular in the New York area that he might be able to help Bush win New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Of course that’s a high risk strategy for Bush. In the 2000 election, Gore won 60% of the vote in New York, and 56% in both New Jersey and Connecticut. (CNN.com: Election 2000 Results)

There are a lot of electoral votes in those three states, but is Giuliani popular enough to overcome the tri-state area’s dislike of Bush? Giuliani’s immense popularity in New York City helped to elect his Republican successor mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Getting normally overwhelmingly Democratic New Yorkers to vote Republican is a pretty big accomplishment. If anyone can do it, Rudy can.

Outside of the Northeast, there is the danger that Giuliani will turn off Bush’s core Christian voters because he’s pro-choice. It’s not that the core Christian voters are going to vote for Kerry. But they might not vote at all. Getting the core voters out in force is a key element to winning elections. This has to be balanced against Giuliani’s popularity with the voters who could go either way.

If this shakeup does happen, it’s because the Bush team is focused solely on winning the election and not on what happens after he wins. It is my opinion that Giuliani has way too big of an ego to be a good vice president. He’s always seeking the spotlight. A “shameless publicity hound” is what Ron Lauder said in his negative campaign ads in the New York City mayoral primary many years back. This isn’t necessarily a bad quality in a president, but as a vice president he could wind up embarrassing the Bush administration on a frequent basis.

It should also be pointed out that Giuliani isn’t a real Republican. His campaign platform in New York City was that he was tough on crime. And this may be a good angle for the 2004 campaign, because tough on crime can be morphed into tough on terrorism. But as vice president, he’d be the leading Republican presidential candidate in 2008, and on most issues he’s politically a lot closer to Bill Clinton than to Ronald Reagan. On the other hand, Bush isn’t much of a real Republican either. When you remove from the table Bush’s support for a few issues that the Christian right cares strongly about, he also isn’t much different than Clinton.

posted Wednesday, June 09, 2004