Rudy makes Paul Helmke nervous

Well, imagine how he makes me feel, Paul.  In all seriousness though, there is a very dire sounding piece in the New York Post about how Paul Helmke (and by extension, the Brady Campaign) is worried that Rudy is going to flip on the gun issue.

“I’d be very disappointed. I don’t know anything that has happened that justifies a change in position,” said Paul Helmke, head of the Brady Campaign.

In case you don’t know, in the 90’s when he was mayor of NYC, Rudy was very much a proponent of gun control, advocating for both the Ban on Scary Looking Rifles, as well as plenty of additional gun legislation in his city.  However, as he is currently seeking the Republican nomination for president, Rudy is wooing the pro-gun community, and is in fact speaking at the NRA headquarters on Friday.

Now, I understand why Helmke is concerned.  He doesn’t want to lose (another) advocate for gun control, especially someone who had a semi-decent shot at getting a Presidential nomination.  Oddly enough, I’m concerned about Rudy for similar reasons, albeit rather opposite.

My concern with Rudy as a presidential candidate isn’t that he is switching to pro-gun side of the debate, but rather that I feel like he’s just saying what he feels he need to say to woo pro-gun Republican votes.  I worry that if he were elected, he would immediately flop right back to his NYC gun control methods.

So, for today at least, it seems that Paul Helmke and I share a similar, if in opposite directions, concern about Rudy Giuliani.  For the record, I do think that Rudy could change his stripes.  If I felt that he had truly had a change of heart, I’d be among the first people to welcome him into the fold; but right now he’s just too much of a politician for me to trust him.

2 Comments

  1. Rudy didn’t change his stripes, he’s just wearing his other face. That would change if he gets the power of the presidency, he would again be the Rudy we recognize.

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