Rudy would easily win if it came down to those two. Not necassarily because he's the better choice but because there are still far too many people who would not vote for a woman.
Not unless he can somehow find conclusive evidence that he was born in the United States. Of course, I could be misreading your post and you might be referring to Tom Arnold, in which case I'd say that he's a far more attractive candidate than either of those two.
My Jove, I think he's got it. Actors seem to make great presidents. All they have to do is act presidential! Tom for PRESIDENT!!!
How about Arnold, the character played by Gary Coleman on Diff'rent Strokes?? "What'chu talkin' bout, Rumsfeld???"
Or that he was born in Austria to parents that were American citizens, which he wasn't. I think, in 2008, enough people would be open minded enough to vote for a woman if she was the right woman, but I don't think Hilary is the right woman. Way too much baggage (8 years of jive in the white house, whitewater, Bill, travel office billing records, etc), far too left to be acceptable to the right leaning conservatives that a democrat needs to get elected and frankly I don't see how enough people could think that she would be a better choice than Rudy (not that he's perfect either) to vote for her. Margaret Thatcher, by then, would have been elected ~30 years ago, so I think America would be liberal enough to consider a woman, just not her. If she does run, can she at least face Jesse Jackson in the primaries? That would be some EXCELLENT TV.
You have to have been born a U.S. citizen to be President? Gee, how did Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Monroe, etc. ever get elected?
The actual text from Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution: At the time of the adoption of the Constitution (1789), all the guys you mentioned were citizens of the United States, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation since 1775. But since nobody is still alive who was alive in 1789, the requirement is that you have to be a citizen by birth, not naturalized. So Schwarzenegger would be ineligible to be President, even if he is a naturalized citizen. He'd have to be born either in the United States or had at least one American citizen as a parent.
There's no way on God's green earth that an Eye-talian would get the nomination of the Republican party. No way Rudy doesn't get demolished in the South. I, personally, think Hillary has no realistic shot at the Democratic nomination for the foreseeable future, but she's got a MUCH better chance than a mackeral-snapper adulterer like Rudy. The whole idea is comical to anyone who has any clue as to what the Republican primary electorat is like. Hell, they beat up McCain because he adopted a minority child. You guys are insane.
It'd kick some political ass, that's for sure, but how would you Libs deal with Rudy closing all of those dirty movie theatres in the name of Family-izing Times @#$%ing Square? He did quite a bit in NYC to curtail individual liberties (street vendors, etc.) that might not sit well with your party. McCain, on the other hand, would make a wonderful LP candidate.
You have a point, to an extent. Rudy never created laws to crack down on porn shops or street vendors. Instead, he enforced laws that were already on the books but forgotten about (zoning codes, cabaret laws, etc.). If the people wanted these laws done away with, the system is there to eradicate them. True he is not a libertarian dream, but he's not so bad either. He was able to also curtail the tremendous amount of crime that brought havoc upon NYC; most violent crime dropping by more than 50% during his administration. To me, that is the greatest protection of liberty. One more thing. The bad stuff is still in NYC. You just have to go to Long Island City in Queens to get it.
With respect to the unelectabilty (for Prez) of an American-Italian, you are right on the money. the undercurrent of anti-Italian prejudice in the U.S. is very strong. When I've expressed this idea on this forum, it isn't taken seriously. But that's just my point. For some reason, Italians are expected to take all kinds of crap that would be tabu` vis-a-vis blacks, Hispanics, Jews, etc. Why is that?
1) Anti catholic prejudice 2) Italians don't look like middle americans 3) they dont call it sauce, they call it red gravy
There's no way Rudy would probably get the nomination but it has nothing to do with his ethnicity. He's a little soft on social issues for most conservatives (pro-choice, pro-gay). On the flipside, another Italian, Antonin Scalia is a darling of the American right.
True my fellow Messinese (from Messina in Sicily) and namesake, Antonino Scalia, has become a right wing icon. However, he could never be elected president either. Brilliant jurist, though.
What, that he adopted a minority child, or that the Bushies used push-polls to bash him for it? Scalia is "brilliant?" His dissent in the sodomy case was pathetic.