Anderson@Large

Don’t Run, Dave, Don’t Run!

In the movie, “Dave,” Kevin Kline becomes the accidental president.

For New York Gov. David Paterson, there is no Hollywood ending. With Paterson’s job approval rating at 20 percent, President Barack Obama has reportedly asked the accidental governor not to run in 2010.

The New York Times reports:

The general election is more than a year away, but Mr. Obama and his political team are moving now in part because of signals from Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, that he may run for governor, according to Democrats who have spoken with White House officials. Many Democratic leaders believe that Mr. Giuliani’s presence at the top of the Republican ticket could spark enthusiasm among his party’s voters, who might otherwise have little desire to go to the polls.

At the annual African American Day Parade in Harlem, a defiant Paterson said, I’m running:

I have said time and time again that I am running for governor next year. My plans have not changed.

It’s ironic that Paterson is being asked to step aside out of concern that he would face Giuliani. At one of his weekly rallies earlier this year, Rev. Al Sharpton taunted Giuliani with “Run, Rudy, run”:

Come on and run, Rudy. We want you to run.

As for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo challenging Paterson for the Democratic nomination, Sharpton said fuhgetaboutit:

That race is not going to happen. This is not about David and Andrew. This is about David and Rudy Giuliani.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has already played the race card.

Get ready for more “teachable moments” about race.

Buh-bye, Rudy

Ain’t no sunshine for Rudy Giuliani in the Sunshine State, where he had campaigned for months. On Election Day, Florida voters told Giuliani to get lost.

Giuliani’s defeat will bring a smile to the faces of New Yorkers who can’t stand the sight of his smug mug.

For months, New Yorkers questioned the sanity of respondents who had Giuliani riding high in national polls. But it was Giuliani who was nuts to think he could ride 9/11 to the Oval Office.

If keeping one’s cool under extreme pressure is a test of leadership, then the keys to the White House should be turned over to New York’s Bravest. Like millions of New Yorkers, firefighters loathe “America’s Mayor.” (Memo to America: You can have him.)

On the eve of the primary, Giuliani called for civility and an end to the “name-calling.” How quaint coming from such a “nasty man” that the New York Times ripped him a new one:

The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.

Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. When he claims fiscal prudence, we remember how he ran through surpluses without a thought to the inevitable downturn and bequeathed huge deficits to his successor. He fired Police Commissioner William Bratton, the architect of the drop in crime, because he couldn’t share the limelight. He later gave the job to Bernard Kerik, who has now been indicted on fraud and corruption charges.

The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign.

Hey Rudy, thy name is Loser.

Boom Boom! Other Voices of the '60s

I spent the holidays in Central Florida, where the only signs of life political life were a Huckabee for President sign propped up on a John Deere tractor, Rudy Giuliani's 9/11 TV ads and Ron Paul's blimp flying over Orlando.

Before leaving for the airport yesterday, I watched Tom Brokaw's talk on his book, "Boom!: Voices of the Sixties," personal reflections of the "causes and effects" of that tumultuous decade.

For me, the leading voices include Fannie Lou Hamer, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton, and Bill Lucy who helped organize the Memphis sanitation workers' strike. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his last speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop," on April 3, 1968, at a rally for the striking sanitation workers.

The voices also include James Brown who told Negroes to "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud," and John Lee Hooker, who released his signature song, "Boom Boom," in 1962.

There’s Something About Rudy

Republican voters are finally souring on Rudy Giuliani, a serial adulterer who has been playing one note about 9/11.

New Yorkers are puzzled by Giuliani’s front-runner status and wonder why GOP voters trust him to deal with terrorism. The iconic image of Giuliani came about because he was not prepared to respond to a terrorist attack in New York City.

Giuliani was walking the streets because he had nowhere to go: his command center was located in the World Trade Center.

We also know that his “leadership” in the wake of 9/11 consisted of little more than holding press conferences with hangers-on. And his sidekick, Bernard Kerik, who took time out of his busy schedule of allegedly shaking down contractors and getting his freak on with his chicks on the side in an apartment overlooking Ground Zero.

Next month, 9/11 Firefighters and Families will launch a public awareness campaign to set the record straight about Giuliani’s “leadership.”  Jim Riches told the Los Angeles Times:

If we have to follow him around all 2008 we’ll do it.

Start spreading the news.

Happy Thanksgiving

A new Quinnipiac poll found that Mitt Romney is the presidential candidate to whom voters are most likely to say, "Stuff it."

By contrast, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani would be asked to "pass the peas."

GOP Debate: Presence of Absence

The four empty lecterns at last night's presidential debate spoke volumes about blacks and the Republican Party.

I left the party in 2000. I announced my resignation in the weekly column I wrote for PoliticallyBlack.com:

Truth be told, the Republican Party left me some time ago. My switch (to independent) comes in the wake of a pattern of racial blunders that I cannot dismiss as mere "mistakes."

Make no mistake: The front-runners made a strategic decision to skip the debate. In doing so, they put the race card on the table.

Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, convenor of the Coalition for the People's Agenda, often says that black folks turn out to vote when they are "glad, mad or sad." The absence of the likely presidential nominee ensures that in 2008, black voters will be madder than usual with Republicans.

So get ready.

GOP Presidential Forum: Unreality TV

Tonight’s All-American Presidential Forum is four candidates shy of reality TV. None of the candidates on the stage have a real chance of winning the GOP presidential nomination.

Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, has assisted PBS in identifying bloggers to cover the forums (disclosure: I'm included in the mix). The even-tempered Robert has unloaded:

The absence of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson from what has been, so far, the only nationally televised debate to focus solely on topics of interest of black Americans sends a very clear message that not only is the Republican Party not interested in courting the "black vote" but is not even willing to engage on issues of importance to African-Americans.

This goes beyond any one campaign. It is nothing less than a disgrace for the entire country. Is it any wonder that when Kanye West blurts out "President Bush hates black people" on national television that many black Americans nod their heads in agreement?

OK, Barry Goldwater said candidates should "go hunting where the ducks are." And sure, Richard Nixon was the last Republican presidential candidate to garner more than 12 percent of the black vote.

But Republicans' minority outreach, the illusion of inclusion, was aimed at white swing voters. Their message: We're not your father's Republican Party.

I was puzzled by the front-runners' snub so I turned to my mentor Milton Bins, a longtime GOP analyst and activist, who now lives in Florida off vote-rich I-4.

Milton said with the partisan divide widening, the hunt for independent voters would not yield very many votes in the general election. So Republicans are concentrating their fire on the party's white conservative base.

So while they may look "stupid," Giuliani, Romney, McCain and Thompson are just keeping it real.