Meet the Candidate: Rudy Giuliani

The New York Family Policy Council's mission statement demands that we educate the public about the issues that impact the family. The coming elections will have a great impact on the family, therefore, we will bring you information on the candidates from the candidates' own websites and from the wikipedia.org. website.

The New York Family Policy neither supports nor opposes any political party or candidate running for office. The information contained in this blog is solely for the purpose of educating the reader about the candidate's political history, personal history and positions on the issues.

The information in this blog was found on www.wikipedia.org/. For more information on Rudy Giuliani, visit the wikipedia site.

Giuliani does not have his own website as far as I can determine. The website, www.rudygiuliani.com/, is run by Google. Wikipedia.org provides the following information:

"Political positions
Main article: Political positions of Rudy Giuliani

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can (October 2007).

Giuliani started his political life as a Democrat, admiring the Kennedy family,[5] working as a party committee person on Long Island in the mid-1960s,[125] volunteering for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1968,[14] and voting for George McGovern for president in 1972.[126]
In 1975 Giuliani switched his party registration from Democratic to Independent.[14]

On December 8, 1980, one month after the election of Ronald Reagan brought Republicans back to power in Washington, he switched his party affiliation from Independent to Republican.[14] Giuliani later said the switches were because he found Democratic policies "naïve", and that "by the time I moved to Washington, the Republicans had come to make more sense to me."[5] Others suggested that the switches were made in order to get positions in the Justice Department.[14]

Giuliani's mother maintained in 1988 that, "He only became a Republican after he began to get all these jobs from them. He's definitely not a conservative Republican. He thinks he is, but he isn't. He still feels very sorry for the poor."[14]

Giuliani has been the target of criticism from many conservatives for some of his views, especially with regard to abortion, immigration, gay rights[127][128][129][130][131][132][133], and gun control.

In 1999, Giuliani said, “I’m pro-choice. I’m pro-gay rights.”[134] On the subject of a partial birth abortion ban, Giuliani said, “No, I have not supported [a ban], and I don’t see my position on that changing."[135]

However, on April 18, 2007, Guiliani stated that the United States Supreme Court "reached the correct conclusion in upholding the congressional ban on partial birth abortion."[136] Giuliani supported public funding for abortions when first running for mayor in 1989, and reaffirmed his support in 2007 while campaigning for the presidency.[137]

In October 2007, Dr. Raymond Burke, the Archbishop of St. Louis, threatened to deny Giuliani Communion due to his past and present support for abortion rights.[138]

Personal life
Giuliani has been married three times. On October 26, 1968, soon after he graduated from law school, he married his second cousin, educator Regina Peruggi, whom Giuliani had known since childhood. In the mid-70s the marriage was in trouble and in 1975 they agreed to a trial separation.[139] Peruggi did not accompany him to Washington when he accepted the job in the Attorney General's Office.[140] Giuliani met local television personality Donna Hanover sometime in 1982, and they began dating when she was working in Miami.[141] Giuliani filed for legal separation from Peruggi on August 12, 1982.[139] Giuliani and Hanover started living together later that year in Washington, D.C.[141] The Giuliani-Peruggi marriage was ended in two ways: a civil divorce was issued by the end of 1982,[142] while a Roman Catholic Church annulment of the Giuliani-Peruggi marriage was granted at the end of 1983,[139] according to Giuliani, because he discovered after 14 years of marriage that he and his wife were second cousins,[143] rather than third cousins,[140] and they did not have the Church dispensation thus needed.[144] Giuliani and Peruggi did not have any children.

Giuliani and Hanover then married in a Catholic ceremony at St. Monica's Church in New York on April 15, 1984.[145][139] They had two children, son Andrew (born January 30, 1986) and daughter Caroline (born 1989). Andrew first became a familiar sight by misbehaving at Giuliani's first mayoral inauguration, then with his father at New York Yankees games, of whom Rudy Giuliani is an enthusiastic fan; Andrew also was an accomplished junior golfer.

Beginning in 1996, Giuliani and Hanover's public relationship became distant, with Hanover appearing at few public events.[146] In 1997, a Vanity Fair article report that Giuliani had a romantic relationship with Cristyne Lategano, the mayor's communications director.[147] The mayor and Lategano denied the allegations. On Father's Day, 1995 Giuliani had told reporters that he was returning to Gracie Mansion to play ball with Andrew. However, he instead went to City Hall, to a basement suite with his press secretary. Three hours later, Hanover, angered, appeared at City Hall; yet a mayoral aide prevented her from entering the suite.[148]

In May 2000, the New York Daily News broke news of Giuliani's extramarital relationship with Judith Nathan, a sales manager for a pharmaceutical company. Giuliani then called a press conference to announce that he intended to separate from Hanover.[149][150][151] Hanover, however, had not been told about his plans before his press conference,[152] an omission for which Giuliani was widely criticized.[153] Previously, Giuliani had hinted at the relationship by referring to Nathan as his "very good friend." Giuliani now went on to praise Nathan as a "very, very fine woman", and said about his marriage with Hanover, that "over the course of some period of time in many ways, we've grown to live independent and separate lives." Hours later Hanover said, "I had hoped that we could keep this marriage together. For several years, it was difficult to participate in Rudy's public life because of his relationship with one staff member," a reference to Lategano. Giuliani, Hanover and Nathan appeared on the cover of People magazine in the aftermath.[154]

Giuliani then moved out of Gracie Mansion and into an apartment belonging to two gay friends.[155] Giuliani filed for divorce from Hanover in October 2000,[156] and an unpleasant public battle broke out between their representatives.[157] Nathan was barred by court order from entering Gracie Mansion (where Hanover still lived) or meeting his children before the divorce was final.[158]

In May 2001, in an effort to mitigate the bad publicity from the proceedings, Giuliani's attorney revealed (with the mayor's approval) that Giuliani was impotent due to his prostate cancer treatments and had not had sex with Nathan for the preceding year. "You don't get through treatment for cancer and radiation all by yourself," Giuliani said. "You need people to help you and care for you and support you. And I'm very fortunate I had a lot of people who did that, but nobody did more to help me than Judith Nathan."[159] Giuliani argued in a court case that he aimed to introduce Nathan to his children on Father's Day, 2001, and that Donna had prevented this visit.[160] Giuliani and Hanover finally settled their acrimonious divorce case in July 2002, after his mayoralty had ended, with Giuliani paying Hanover a $6.8 million settlement and granting her custody of their children.[161]

Giuliani subsequently married Judith Nathan on May 24, 2003, and thus gained a stepdaughter, Whitney. It was also Nathan's third marriage after two prior divorces.[154]

By March 2007, The New York Times and the New York Daily News reported that Rudy Giuliani had become estranged from both his son Andrew (now a golf team member at Duke University) and his daughter Caroline (graduated from Trinity School in 2007, attending Harvard University), missing major events in their lives, such as graduations, and sometimes going long stretches without talking to them, and that neither of them was taking part in his presidential campaign.[162][163] Caroline uses her mother's surname, Hanover, rather than Giuliani's, and according to reports, she did not inform Giuliani when she was accepted to Harvard.[154] Caroline apparently linked her personal Facebook page to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama.[164][165] However, after a slate.com contributor reported this link, Caroline removed this link from her "Facebook" page.[166]

He is the godfather to former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik's two youngest children. [167]

2008 presidential campaign
Main article: Rudy Giuliani presidential campaign, 2008

This article or section contains information about one or more candidates in an upcoming or ongoing election.Content may change as the election approaches.

2008 presidential campaign logo
A draft movement began in late 2005 to get Giuliani to run for President of the United States in 2008. Throughout 2006, rumors circulated regarding a possible Giuliani campaign, abetted by hints from the former Mayor himself. In November 2006 Giuliani announced the formation of an exploratory committee. In February 2007 he filed a "statement of candidacy" and confirmed on the television program Larry King Live that he was indeed running.[168]

Early polls showed him with one of the highest levels of name recognition and support and the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination.[169]

In Giuliani's second appearance in a major 2007 GOP debate, on May 15, conducted by Fox News, he challenged fellow candidate Representative Ron Paul, when Paul stated that the United States' military interventionist policy was a contributing factor to why America has been attacked and why there are anti-American feelings in the region. Giuliani interrupted the debate and said that Paul made "an extraordinary statement" and that "as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don't think I've heard that before, and I've heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th."[170]

In May 2007, the Associated Press reported that while the Log Cabin Republicans generally favor Giuliani over the other Republican candidates, some within the organization express concerns that Giuliani has spoken against civil unions.[171]

In June of 2007, a poll of New York voters revealed that a majority of New York City voters disapproved of him, while Giuliani's favorable rating among New York Republicans was 76%.[172]

As of September 2007, most polls showed Giuliani to have more support than any of the other declared Republican candidates, with only Senator Thompson and Governor Romney showing greater support in some state polls.[173] Specifically, state-by-state polls for the 2008 Republican nomination show that Giuliani polls ahead of all other candidates in a majority of states including the delegate-rich states of California [174], New York [175] and Florida[176]. Thompson shows strength in southern states such as Texas[177], North Carolina[178], South Carolina[179] (which is a key early state), Georgia[180], Tennessee[181] (which he served as U.S. Senator) and Alabama[182] (his birthplace). Romney shows strength in the key early states of Iowa[183], New Hampshire[184] and Nevada[185], and is also polling well in Michigan[186] (which may be a key early state), Utah[187] and Idaho[188].

Awards and honors
Giuliani is awarded the 2002 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award by former First Lady Nancy Reagan

In 1998, Mayor Giuliani received The Hundred Year Association of New York's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to the City of New York."[189]

For his leadership on and after September 11, Giuliani was given an honorary knighthood (KBE) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on February 13, 2002.[190]

In 2002, the Episcopal Diocese of New York gave Giuliani the Fiorello LaGuardia Public Service Award for Valor and Leadership in the Time of Global Crisis.[191]

Also in 2002, Former First Lady Nancy Reagan awarded the Mayor the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award. The award is given to "those who have made monumental and lasting contributions to the cause of freedom," and who "embody President Reagan's lifelong belief that one man or woman truly can make a difference."[192]

In 2004, construction began on the Rudolph W. Giuliani Trauma Center at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York.[193]

In 2005, Giuliani received honorary degrees from Loyola College in Maryland[194] and Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.[citation needed] In 2007, Giuliani received an honorary Doctorate in Public Administration from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, Charleston, SC.

In 2006, Rudy and Judith Giuliani were honored by the American Heart Association at its annual Heart of the Hamptons benefit in Water Mill, New York.[195]

Electoral history
1989 Race for Mayor (New York City)
David Dinkins (D), 51%
Rudy Giuliani (R), 49%
1993 Race for Mayor (New York City)
Rudy Giuliani (R), 49%
David Dinkins (D) (inc.), 46%
1997 Race for Mayor (New York City)
Rudy Giuliani (R) (inc.), 59%
Ruth Messinger (D), 41% "