Cowboy Confessional

There are many reasons to vote against a candidate, and this past weekend Rudy Giuliani displayed three.

Two errors were born of ignorance (it could also be stupidity, but he seems a little to smart to have that failing).  While speaking to California Republicans, Giuliani said:

1) He used gun control to reduce crime in New York

2) His brand of gun control would have no effect on hunting (he made this claim after saying “I understand the Second Amendment. I understand the right to bear arms.”)

The former claim is ignorant in as much as there are a multitude of variables (all well vetted by criminologists) as a determinate for crime reduction.  While in office, Giuliani himself rapidly expanded the size of his police force, a variable known to deter criminals.  He also did this during the 1990s when crime was falling nationally, and was a key variable in what occurred in New York. Yet even the Federal Government, through years of research, concluded that gun control has no demonstrable effect on crime.

Let me be blunt: I publicly challenge Rudy to back-up his claim.  I know he’ll duck the challenge because he doesn’t have the data or the stones to prove his point.

On his latter claim, he displays a bewildering ignorance of the scope of the Second Amendment.  I won’t recite the full scope here (it is so well documented that it is hard to imagine how anyone with a G.E.D. or better could not comprehend that the Second Amendment has the least to do with hunting).  For him to take this position when the 30-to-1 consensus of constitutional lawyers and the common public wisdom disagrees, is either a slimy attempt to placate the masses, or a massive delusion.  Either way, it does not bode well for Rudy’s candidacy.

These factors alone would be enough to kill his candidacy, but mix Giuliani’s misguided constitutional assumptions with the general distrust of New Yorkers that exists south of the Mason-Dixon line, and you have a candidate that will fail to draw the growing half of the voting populace. 

This was his third mistake — believing that everyone thinks like a New Yorker.  Fact is you will not find anyone outside of New York that does (with the exception of a few transplanted Yankees who in their retirement years have invaded the South).

Good bye Rudy.  You are sunk from the start, and will not rise above a statistical footnote.

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