Author Topic: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem  (Read 1803 times)

Dos Equis

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Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« on: March 07, 2007, 08:08:40 AM »
I figured this would be a problem. 

Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
POSTED: 8:02 a.m. EST, March 7, 2007

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- A Southern Baptist leader said Tuesday that evangelical voters might tolerate a divorced presidential candidate, but they have deep doubts about GOP hopeful Rudy Giuliani, who has been married three times.

Richard Land, head of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention, told The Associated Press that evangelicals believe the former New York City mayor showed a lack of character during his divorce from his second wife, television personality Donna Hanover.

"I mean, this is divorce on steroids," Land said. "To publicly humiliate your wife in that way, and your children. That's rough. I think that's going to be an awfully hard sell, even if he weren't pro-choice and pro-gun control."

Giuliani married his longtime companion, Judith Nathan, in 2003. They had dated publicly while Giuliani was married to Hanover. His first marriage ended in an annulment. (Watch why Giuliani's son won't be campaigning for him )

A Giuliani staff member referred calls on Land's statement to Giuliani's exploratory committee, which did not have an immediate response Tuesday night.

Giuliani already has a challenge in winning over conservative voters who make up the GOP's base. Many of them view him with skepticism because his moderate views on social issues such as gays, guns and abortion are considered too liberal.

Land noted that Republican presidential candidate John McCain has been married twice, but said the Arizona senator has acknowledged his part in the failure of his first marriage.

"It's a molehill compared to Giuliani's mountain," Land said. "When you're a war hero [like McCain], you have less to prove on the character front."

Many polls identify Giuliani as the front-runner in the Republican presidential primary, followed by McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Southern Baptists have been among the most vocal of conservative Christian groups in support of the Bush administration. But they and other evangelicals are struggling to find a consensus presidential candidate who embraces their stands against gay marriage and abortion.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/07/giuliani.baptists.ap/index.html

OzmO

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2007, 09:25:28 AM »
What do you think of Giuliani?

I think him being single and having 3 divorces will keep him out of the white house.

Dos Equis

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2007, 09:33:53 AM »
What do you think of Giuliani?

I think him being single and having 3 divorces will keep him out of the white house.

I actually think he would win the general, but I have always believed his personal problems would prevent him from making it out of the primary. 

For me, the fact he is on his third marriage isn't a deal breaker, it's the way he ended his second marriage that bothers me.  I don't like the fact he was so blatant about his involvement with his current wife while he was still married to wife no. 2.  In fact, didn't wife no. 3 move into the mayor's residence while he was still married to wife no. 2? 

Re him as a candidate overall:  I'd like to hear more.  I'd like to know his position on taxes.  I like how he deals with crime.  He did an incredible job during 911.  Don't like his views on homosexual marriage. 

youandme

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2007, 09:55:47 AM »
him being a former federal prosecutor, I think that is just what this country needs...more people in jail ::)

ribonucleic

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2007, 10:03:10 AM »
What do you think of Giuliani?

Before 9/11 made him into a dashboard-saint [and there's debate on exactly how well he acquitted himself even there], Giuliani was a polarizing figure among New Yorkers.

The law-and-order types loved him - because he used heavy-handed regulatory enforcement to sweep the homeless out of view and make Times Square from a colorful sleaze pit into a bland Disneyworld for the tourists.

People more concerned about the vitality of urban culture and civil rights [that's right, "liberals"] thought he was a jerk and not a little scary.

I think he'd be far-and-away the most dangerous inheritor of the nascent police state Bush has created - and I'm rooting for the evangelicals to successfully keep him off the ticket.

ieffinhatecardio

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2007, 10:12:23 AM »
It may not be the Evangelicals that keep him off the ticket but I highly doubt he'll win the nomination.

This somewhat reminds me of Cuomo. Not that their politics were similar but that they had pasts that would hurt them if it was exposed.

Dos Equis

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #6 on: March 09, 2007, 11:50:36 PM »
Didn't realize he has problems with his kids too.  Not good. 

Mar 10, 2:26 AM EST

Giuliani's Private Life May Hurt His Run

By MARC HUMBERT
Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- Ronald Reagan was divorced, had chilly relations with some of his children, and still easily won two terms as president. Rudy Giuliani has been thrice married and twice divorced, has chilly relations with his children, and wants to be elected president.

Twenty-seven years after Reagan became the only divorced candidate to win the presidency, the former New York City mayor is hoping that when it comes to family values, voters will be as accommodating.

They may not be.

Republican strategists say Giuliani's troubled family relationships are likely to hinder his standing among conservatives who already have questions about his positions on social issues. They say the estrangement could raise a question in voters' minds: If Giuliani can't keep his family together, how will he keep the country together?

In fact, Giuliani's support for abortion and gay rights, his backing of gun control measures and his very New Yorkness already had given conservatives pause about his candidacy. He has also marched in gay pride parades, dressed up in drag and lived temporarily with a gay couple and their Shih Tzu.

Then came the stories about his family.

"There's obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife," Andrew Giuliani, a 21-year-old student at Duke University, recently told The New York Times.

Standing outside the Los Angeles County sheriff's headquarters on Monday, the former New York mayor faced questions about the estrangement from his son Andrew.

"The more privacy I can have for my family, the better we are going to be able to deal with all these difficulties," he said.

America was getting a look at what New York tabloid readers were familiar with from the pre-Sept. 11 world, when Giuliani's planned 2000 Senate campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton fell apart in the face of his prostate cancer and the messy and very public breakup of his marriage to TV personality Donna Hanover.

Judith Nathan was the other woman back then and subsequently became Giuliani's third wife and stepmother to the two Giuliani-Hanover children, Andrew and Christine. Giuliani's first marriage to his second cousin, Regina Peruggi, ended after 14 years in divorce and later an annulment.

That may not wash with today's Republican Party, where religious conservatives hold greater sway than in Reagan's day, said political scientist Gerald Benjamin.

"The mobilization of the Christian right is a movement of contemporary Republican politics," said Benjamin, dean of liberal arts and sciences at the State University of New York's New Paltz campus. "It makes more of a difference now."

There is another difference.

"Ronald Reagan had a wealth of conservative support based on his record and that made conservative Republicans look beyond any issues with his kids and his divorce," said GOP strategist Nelson Warfield. "Giuliani doesn't bring a wealth of conservative support to the equation."

Independent pollster Lee Miringoff said Giuliani's request for privacy is unlikely to be heeded given that private lives have become fair game in politics. "It's become a fact of life," said Miringoff, head of Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion.

For Giuliani, the family flap came at a bad time. He had surged to the front of the GOP pack, pulling ahead of Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

"He's probably the most famous, least known candidate for president we've had in a long time," said Warfield. "This exposes a side of Giuliani most voters would have no idea about."

Southern Baptist Convention leader Richard Land, for example, described Giuliani's breakup with Hanover as "divorce on steroids." Hanover learned her husband was seeking a divorce from television after he announced the decision at a press conference.

"To publicly humiliate your wife in that way, and your children - that's rough," said Land. "I think that's going to be an awfully hard sell, even if he weren't pro-choice and pro-gun control." Marital history and family values have been bubbling just below the surface of the Republican campaign for months.

At a GOP dinner in Missouri last month, Ann Romney said the biggest difference between her husband, Mitt, and his rivals was that "he's had only one wife."

McCain is divorced and has a second wife. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is considering a presidential run, is twice divorced and on Thursday acknowledged he was having an extramarital affair when he led the charge against President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Miringoff said Ann Romney's comments may also be designed to blunt concerns about her husband's Mormon faith, given the church's past links to polygamy.

And while Andrew Giuliani has said he is too busy pursuing a possible professional golf career to campaign for his dad, one of Romney's five sons is working on his father's campaign full-time. All Romney's sons, their wives and the candidate's 10 grandchildren have been prominently featured by the campaign.

Giuliani's campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, declined to discuss how the former mayor's private life might play out in the campaign other than to say, "This election is about leadership" and Americans appear to have embraced Giuliani's "optimistic vision and reputation as a problem solver."

The last New York Republican to make a serious run for the White House, Nelson Rockefeller, lost the GOP nomination in 1964 to Barry Goldwater - in part because of the then-New York governor's divorce and subsequent remarriage.

"'We need a leader, not a lover,' was the slogan used against him," recalled Benjamin, a Rockefeller biographer.

---
 
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GIULIANI_FAMILY_VALUES?SITE=HIHAD&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Straw Man

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2007, 09:09:00 AM »
at least he's got a sense of humor: 


Dos Equis

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2007, 10:48:57 AM »
at least he's got a sense of humor: 



lol.   :)  You couldn't pay me enough . . . .

Straw Man

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2007, 11:51:31 AM »
lol.   :)  You couldn't pay me enough . . . .

I think he's done this a few times.  Maybe he likes it.

Dos Equis

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #10 on: March 10, 2007, 11:55:07 AM »
I think he's done this a few times.  Maybe he likes it.

Maybe.   :)  He could get a job in Hawaii, because employers cannot discriminate based on a person's actual or perceived gender identity.   :-\

240 is Back

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #11 on: March 10, 2007, 12:02:22 PM »
Maybe.   :)  He could get a job in Hawaii, because employers cannot discriminate based on a person's actual or perceived gender identity.   :-\

you're unhappy because employers cannot discriminate huh?



beach bum,

you're a creepy weirdo.  you lie, you condone discrimination and racism.

you're weird.

Camel Jockey

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Re: Evangelical leader says Giuliani's divorce a problem
« Reply #12 on: March 10, 2007, 12:18:57 PM »
Before 9/11 made him into a dashboard-saint [and there's debate on exactly how well he acquitted himself even there], Giuliani was a polarizing figure among New Yorkers.

The law-and-order types loved him - because he used heavy-handed regulatory enforcement to sweep the homeless out of view and make Times Square from a colorful sleaze pit into a bland Disneyworld for the tourists.

People more concerned about the vitality of urban culture and civil rights [that's right, "liberals"] thought he was a jerk and not a little scary.

I think he'd be far-and-away the most dangerous inheritor of the nascent police state Bush has created - and I'm rooting for the evangelicals to successfully keep him off the ticket.

I think there's no comparison between Bush and Guliani. Guliani was actually a great mayor and made NYC worth living in by cleaning up after that worthless sack of shit David Duncan with his no nonsense policies. I wouldn't vote him into office, but that doesn't mean he's bad guy.

Quote
People more concerned about the vitality of urban culture and civil rights [that's right, "liberals"] thought he was a jerk and not a little scary.

He ended apologist behavior to blacks and hispanics, which was plaguing the city.