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Giuliani the keynote speaker at GOP convention

BY TOM BRUNE | tom.brune@newsday.com

August 21, 2008

WASHINGTON - By making Rudy Giuliani the Republican Convention's keynote speaker yesterday, presumptive GOP nominee John McCain hopes to lure independent voters, but might find the former New York City mayor also tends to draw controversy.

Giuliani will join a range of speakers, from former Democratic vice presidential nominee and now Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

McCain turned to Giuliani to make the coveted keynote speech on the second night of the convention in St. Paul in two weeks, said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, "because the key to this election is independents, and Rudy is very popular with them."

But in his first public event after the campaign announced his role and a list of other speakers for each day of the Sept. 1-4 convention, Giuliani found the going anything but smooth.

The McCain campaign put Giuliani on a conference call with reporters to attack a Barack Obama foreign policy adviser for meeting as a representative of the American Bar Association last month with Syria's leader, deemed a sponsor of terrorism.

Yet by the time McCain aides ended the phone call, Giuliani had found himself defending his own law firm's ties to Venezuela's leader Hugo Chávez, labeled a despot by the United States, and asserting that Republicans would support a McCain running mate who backs abortion rights.

Giuliani is one of the most high-profile Republicans who supports abortion rights, a fact he admits severely hampered his own failed presidential bid, which ended earlier this year after he led in national polls for most of last year.

"It would seem to me the Republican Party is not, as far as I can tell, and I traveled to thousands of places last year, a one-issue party," he said.

With that comment, Giuliani echoed the McCain campaign.

For the past week, since McCain said Tom Ridge's support for abortion rights would not disqualify him as a choice for running mate, the social-conservative wing of the GOP has been up in arms.

Though McCain has sought to tamp it down with reassurances his own anti-abortion stance will prevail if he wins the election, conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie yesterday issued a warning that conservatives might retaliate by staying home on Nov. 4.

Dan Schnur, a former McCain aide who now is director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute for Politics at USC, said he thought McCain selected Giuliani primarily because he could appeal to independents, and not for his abortion stance.

"The two most important things for the Republicans to do at the convention are reinforce McCain's national security credentials and reach out to undecided voters," Schnur said. "Those are both things in which Giuliani can be a very significant asset."