my gut tells me right now as i look at it that gingrich might actually be the stronger candidate. because i think he can make a broader connection than mitt romney. as i said to the to the reagan democrats where he won t have this barrier of possible elitism that i think obama could exploit pretty effectively. that was from our file tape. joining us now, former mayor of new york city and former republican presidential candidate mayor rudy giuliani, we re just clarifying that was several years ago, right? no, that was about a week ago. we didn t have a lot of people onset saying what you just said that newt is perhaps the most electable republican. well, i believe it for a
democrats who didn t want to balance the budget. it overwhelmed us. that happened time and time again. that was a stupid thing to say. no question but not his last stupid it s a tough audience for you. man, oh, man, i can give you a list of stupid things i said, that barack obama has said, stupid things that mitt romney has recently said. i work with newt also, not as closely as you did. as the mayor of new york, most of the time he was the speaker, i found working with him and bill clinton very easy. and we worked the crime bill. newt, you guys voted down the crime bill before newt took over. clinton wanted to to put the crime bill back together. it was going to get me $100 million for new york city. and a lot of midnight basketball. and i spent a lot of time negotiating with bill clinton and newt gingrich. and when he calms down and relaxes, he s a totally practical, smart guy. and does he have his when? but what do we want the
impressive record. again for conservatives. does huntsman have the most conservative record of anybody in the field? i think pretty maybe santorum. but pretty close. but santorum s numbers are so poor. but, you know, we re always accused of being so doctrinal, we stick to these views. well, if we did, there d be more enthusiasm for huntsman than newt who is all over the map. i love newt, he s got more ideas in a day than i ll have in a year, but the debate will be about newt, it won t be that s one of the maddening things, i want to go to sam stein. i ve got you here and this is a great opportunity for me to vent. it seems over the past decade while george w. bush was president and once barack obama came president, it became more important for the conservative movement to have these catharsis moments, to engage in primal screen therapy, to say he s our guy, he s a member of our gang. so if you re against our guy, we re going to kick the hell out
it s like it s getting ridiculous now. it s like the guy s some kind of monster. let me ask you a question and not necessarily about newt gingrich, but let me just take your question. what would barack obama do with that? you could put that toward newt gingrich or any of the other candidates. absolutely. let me ask you this, if a candidate often you and i don t speak the same language. it s english, but sometimes we don t understand your english. i have to tell you, because if you re looking, your party is looking for a conservative who can beat barack obama, you ask what barack obama would do with newt gingrich or mitt romney. he could do a lot, don t you think? of course he can. but what are we looking for? are we looking for the reagan democrats? who makes the closer connection to the reagan democrats? mitt romney? talking about elitism, an aura of elitism or newt who can talk
of you and you re needily not a member of our gang. and the things you ve always looked at, that william buckley always looked at like, who is the real conservative? seemed to matter less and less. and that s how we ran up this huge debt, this is how we got engaged in foreign policy. is there going to be a real awakening of sobriety just in time? yeah. remember bush derangement syndrome? we have obama derangement syndrome. newt will give it to him but what happens in the morning? how do you feel in the morning? these debates don t really resolve things. we think they re going to al gore s going to wipe the floor with george bush or kerry s going to do that doesn t work that way. doesn t work that way. but do you want to feel good or win an election? that is it right there. you just nailed it. and that s basically what the national review is saying.