Published: May 23, 2007 01:57 pm      

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Giuliani talks guns and butter

BUFFALO — “The Mayor” served up some dish on guns and butter, and the people who paid big bucks to listen didn’t miss the side of knee-jerk rectitude.

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, a past two-term mayor of New York City, seemed to hit all the right notes with area party supporters during a Wednesday night fundraiser at Kleinhans Music Hall co-hosted by former U.S. Ambassador Anthony Gioia and Lockport developer David Ulrich.

In exchange for a $2,300 campaign contribution, attendees from around Western New York got a photo-op with Giuliani and a half-hour of casual talk from the candidate on what he thinks the priorities of the nation need to be. While regional media hammered Giuliani about his social issue positions — moderate, at least, and liberal compared with his GOP competition — Giuliani kept his message to supporters focused on economy and national security.

Giuliani, as mayor of New York, is on record as being pro-choice and supportive of gun control and gay rights, all social issues that put him to the left of other candidates in the GOP presidential field.

The candidate had a different take in his remarks Tuesday.

“I was the most conservative mayor in the history of New York City,” Giuliani said in answer to media questions outside Kleinhans, touting his success in turning a city deficit into a surplus while cutting local taxes by billions, cutting crime rates and jump-starting private job creation.

Of his record on social issues, he said, “You’ll never have 100 percent agreement with anybody. ... Republicans will support whoever they think will best lead the country. ... In that regard, I think I’m it. ... What are the most important issues? War, the economy.”

Inside, in a gathering closed to live press coverage, Giuliani elaborated on those two themes as he talked up the successes of his administration of one of the nation’s biggest, toughest cities. Nobody needed reminding that he was in charge when terrorists downed the World Trade Center in September 2001, but Giuliani wasn’t shy about referencing the event as he talked about the need for the United States to stay on the offensive against its mortal enemy, “Islamic fundamentalists.”

Speaking like a standard bearer, he drew nods of agreement in painting President Bill Clinton’s handling of the al Qaida threat as “defensive” and warned U.S. policy would be that way again if the Democrats win the White House next year.

Giuliani said he supports President Bush’s offense-as-a-defense stance and hopes the current strategy, raising troop levels to flush out insurgency, is successful. In answer to an audience question about the war, however, he did not say what he thinks about the ongoing Washington argument over disengagement. Instead, he said, the nation needs to focus attention on Iran, Syria and other hotbeds of Islamic radicalism.

Of the economy, Giuliani talked up the “fiscal offensive” he went on to turn around New York City. Cutting taxes and regulations were the keys to the city’s economic recovery, he said, and the same are needed at the national level. Again raising the specter of a Clinton White House — this time Hillary’s — he hinted the Democratic outlook is again more defensive than offensive. Higher taxes and more government regulation will dampen growth and invite more outsourcing of American jobs to other nations, he said.

Of immigration and border security, Giuliani said he favors creation of a tamper-proof ID system and database to record the presence of all non-Americans in the country. He proposed inviting illegal aliens to apply for IDs — and pay taxes — in exchange for granting them permission to remain here, do the “important” work that Americans don’t want to do and earn citizenship after a time. Immigration reform on the table in Congress now is confusing and contradictory, he said.

Giuliani’s studied attention only to guns and butter played well with local Republicans.

Forget the media frenzy over whether Giuliani is “conservative enough” for right-of-center social critics, Niagara Falls businessman Paul Accardo said, the forest matters more than the trees.

“If he can do for the country what he did for New York City, it would be great. The difference (in the city) before him and after is night and day,” Accardo said.

State Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, agreed, and predicted Giuliani the New York Republican won’t be as tough a sell to heartland Republicans as the media has been suggesting.

“Nationwide, the Republican party is getting more moderate and (Giuliani) is a moderate,” Maziarz said. “Look at the broader picture. Bush the 41st president was much more moderate than (current President Bush). It’s swinging back (to moderates) again.”

Ideology won’t matter when it comes to the general election anyway, Niagara County Republican Committee Chairman Henry Wojtaszek said.

“In the end the campaign comes down to a Republican versus a Democrat and who can better deal with the economy and security issues,” he said. “The social issues are tangential.”

But Lockport attorney George Muscato suggested it’s a relief to hear from a Republican who’s not toeing the line of the old Moral Majority.

“(Giuliani) is a fiscal conservative who’s socially moderate to liberal. That’s my thing,” Muscato said. “He recognizes that people have the right to make choices.”

“He’s my kind of Republican,” his daughter, Alexis Muscato, added.

According to Ulrich, the Wednesday meet-and-greet raised enough cash for Giuliani to qualify as “the single most successful fund raiser event in the history of western New York.” He declined to say exactly how much, but a rough head count of attendees suggests well more than $300,000.

Contact reporter Joyce Miles at 439-9222, ext. 6245.