Politics & Funk

No dog can go as fast as the money you bet on him ~Bud Flanagan

Fuck Bud Flanagan. He’s dead and his words echo false right about now. They simply don’t take into account the evolution of the American political consciousness, or maybe it’s de-evolution, as it often seems. He’s not sitting in this desk where I am at the moment. He hasn’t spent a Saturday afternoon sifting through media reports and news articles detailing every minutia of the race for the GOP presidential nomination. He’s not wearing a v-neck t-shirt at dusk, rubbing his fingers up and down his temples, and glaring speculatively at this computer screen. In fact, Flanagan, a popular British entertainer during World War II, left this planet when Rudy Giuliani was only 24.

Just a young buck and a Democrat then, Mr. Giuliani was in the process of graduating from NYU’s law school. After getting a degree in theology from Manhattan College, he had initially flirted with the idea of priesthood in the Catholic Church. However, after meticulous consideration, he opted for a profession as an attorney instead. His career would turn out to be a fast moving and illustrious one.

In 1970, he joined the United States Attorney’s Office in Southern New York. Three years later, he was appointed Chief of the Narcotics unit, and soon after he moved to Washington D.C. to serve as the Associate Deputy Attorney General for Gerald Ford. After a quick stint in a private law practice during the Carter years, he returned to Washington to work under the Reagan administration. There he served as the Associate Attorney General, the third-highest position in the Department of Justice. In 1983, he was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was then that he received national attention for his patented “perp walk,” in which he would parade suspects in front of previously alerted media.

Bud Flanagan never saw any of that. He didn’t know that in Giuliani’s 28-year career in law enforcement he garnered a reputation as a “gunslinger,” “a straight-talker,” “a quick draw,” and “a tough, kick-butt policeman,” as CNBC talk show host Chris Matthews recently described him in a November 6th segment. Bud Flanagan didn’t see 9/11. He didn’t see the image of Rudy in front of America’s television on that day and for days to come. He didn’t know that Giuliani would be proclaimed “Man of the Year” by Time Magazine in 2001 with a mythological-looking cover shot, and become an icon of strength and stability across our America. Nor could he have predicted that Rudy Giuliani would be the GOP frontrunner in one of the most bitter and partisan elections in the last century, and that he would potentially face off with Hillary Clinton.

And clearly, Bud Flanagan had no idea that despite Rudy Giuliani’s pro-life and anti-gun positions, his three marriages,his propensity for cross-dressing, and his generally secular nature—all of which have been perceived as astronomical problems in his conservative electability—he would be endorsed by America’s most popular right-wing evangelical Christian minister, Pat Robertson, on Wednesday November 7, 2007.

Because if Bud Flanagan had known these things there’s no way in hell he could have said what he said, as clearly Rudy Giuliani is not only a very fast dog, but a dog so stealthy, vicious, bloodthirsty, and eminent, that one would have to be a Puritan to consider not betting the house on him—and as I stare at the political futures board on the website of the InTrade Exchange, my eyes light up at the diminutive price a share of Mr. Giuliani’s presidency is going for.

It’s 16.5 cents!

A 16.5 cent share of Mr. Giuliani will pay out a dollar if he takes the whole thing down next November, which he very well may. And even if he gets close, Rudy shares will easily jump in price to between 42 and 50 cents, making for a potential profit of three fold. I’ll likely have to sell then because my conscience will start to get to me, but the temptation to ride the money horse all the way to the finish line will be present.

The endorsement of Pat Robertson on Tuesday was a stunning victory for the Giuliani campaign, and it wasn’t because what Pat Robertson says makes a single bit of sense, because it doesn’t. Robertson has exposed himself through the years to be a full-fledged lunatic—an anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-feminist, anti-Protestant, xenophobic zealot—whose has stated publicly that 9/11 was punishment for pornography and that religions other than Christianity represent the anti-Christ. The amount of delusional vitriol that he has spewed over his last thirty years is so immense that I’ve created an entire page of the highlights because I couldn’t possibly detail them all here. However, I do find it necessary to state for the record that Mr. Robertson has claimed on numerous occasions that he consults with God about how to use catastrophic weather and terrorist attacks to punish immorality….and also boasts that he can leg press 2,000 pounds.

Besides his bizarre and abhorrent behavior, Mr. Robertson is also at odds with Giuliani on his most prized issue, 9/11. Giuliani has run his campaign as the 9/11 candidate, invoking the national tragedy and his role in its aftermath as evidence of his strong and passionate leadership. His selling point has been his adamancy that the United States did nothing wrong. “The people who deserve blame for Sept. 11, I think we should remind ourselves, are the terrorists — the Islamic fanatics — who came here and killed us and want to come here again and do it,” the former New York City Mayor said in a recent campaign stop in Florida.

However, Robertson does blame Americans for 9/11. In fact, he believes that “rampant internet pornography, rampant secularism and the slaughter of 35 to 40 million unborn babies,” were the cause of the tragedy. In a television interview with fellow Minister Jerry Falwell, he agreed explicitly with Falwell’s assertion that the “gays,” “lesbians,” “pagans,” and the “ACLU” were responsible as well.

So what gives? Apparently, the notion that ideological continuity is needed to form a political pact.

Giuliani’s tacit commitment to appointing “strict constructionist” Supreme Court Justices who might overturn Roe v. Wade was evidently enough to get Robertson in the bandwagon. Also aiding the decision was likely the realization that Giuliani may take the GOP nomination with or without the endorsement of the evangelical right, potentially leaving leaders like Robertson out in the cold. Over the last few months, there has been plenty of hullabaloo about evangelicals refusing to vote for Giuliani and possibly even running a third-party candidate who truly espouses their moral values. Focus on the Family founder James Dobson stated that “he cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008,” in a May editorial, adding that his decision was “irrevocable.”

As the leader of one of the largest evangelical organizations in the country, Dobson’s opinion looms large. But at this point he may be left with few options besides prayer to stop Rudy Giuliani from pulling away with the GOP nomination.

From the get-go, Giuliani’s strategy with the evangelicals has been a simple one: divide and conquer. As long as he got a piece of the ‘moral’ vote, he believed he could win the GOP nomination and then use the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency to rally the remainder of the religious right hold-outs. With the endorsement of Robertson, he may have done just that and more.

In a CNN poll released on November 4, Giuliani continues to lead all other republican candidates by a significant margin. His 28% share of the vote puts him 9% ahead of Fred Thompson and 12 points up on third-place finisher John McCain. In addition, a recently released AP poll showed that Mr. Giuliani is the second choice of 1/3 of Republican voters who support one of his rivals. This figure towered over second-place finisher McCain, who 19% chose as their back up. Although at first glance a seemingly odd and barely relevant metric, the ‘back-up poll’ speaks volumes about the potential success of Giuliani. To be blunt, he’s much more tolerable than everyone expected, which is really all he needs to be.

Although supporters ideologically similar to Giuliani are few and far between, there are a large contingent of conservatives who align with the former New York Mayor for one reason; they think he can beat Hillary Clinton. For years, the Republican revolution of the 90’s has been painted as a movement based upon moral values, specifically a vehement disapproval of abortion and marriage. Although this was the catalyst for the groundswell of Republican support that ushered in a Republican majority and two terms of George Bush, it appears the evangelical base has become a ‘team player’ for the Republicans and will still vote GOP—despite the fact that their nominee may be an adulterer who occasionally wears women’s clothes.

By default, Rudy Giuliani will become their candidate, and once he starts to pull away from the GOP pack, the religious right will fall in line and arm itself for the fight. Preachers will begrudgingly endorse Giuliani like falling dominos, and parishioners will eagerly sign away check after check. Mr. Robertson will shout from his pulpit that the Lord has told him over a round of golf that Hillary Clinton is the devil incarnate, and that if she’s not stopped the world will either cease to exist or be run by God-hating liberals who will ban the Bible and clothes. The partisan divide will exacerbate, the Presidential race will get nasty fast, and Giuliani, the eternal pugilist, will be ready and frothing at the mouth for a fight.

Oh, and one more thing. Shares of Giuliani presidential futures will peak sometime around next August—in the midst of a nation-wide heat wave and a brutal GOP offensive—at 48 cents per share. Buy now, or forever hold your peace.

Note: In the belief that “music soothes the soul of the even the most savage beast,” Politics and Funk has provided a complimentary musical selection to close out this editorial. If you would like to listen to it, please click here

Tags: Pat Robertson, Rudy Giuliani