by Molly Ivors
Well, I suppose this was inevitable.
Would-Be President Matlock, who only wants to be president so Bubbles his child bride can turn the White House into her Barbie Dream House (and because Reagan told him the naps were Teh Bomb), has turned on his Republican rival, Rudolf "Il Duce" Giuliani.
BRISTOL, N.H. — Presidential hopeful Fred Thompson said Friday that New York City isn't a model for the rest of the country and that Rudy Giuliani should stop basing his stances on his time as that city's mayor.
Thompson, campaigning at a New Hampshire gun store with stuffed moose and deer overhead, told reporters that Giuliani too often turns to his time as New York mayor to explain his support for stronger gun restrictions.
"He relates everything to New York City. Well, New York City is not emblematic of the rest of the country, I don't think. I think the sentiments of those people in the rest of the country are in support of the Second Amendment _ which is where I've always been and I don't think he's ever been," Thompson said.
Just after 9/11, Thers was extremely skeptical of the new I ♥ NY fervor sweeping America. "These people hate New York City," he correctly noted.
Remember, it was only a year and change earlier, in 2000, that the proudly ignorant cracker John Rocker had defined NYC for the masses: "It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark, looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing." Oddly, many people on the 7 Train found riding next to a paranoid hate-monger depressing as well.
I have to admit, I'm a small-town person (as opposed to Thers, the dazzling urbanite), and though I occasionally find NYC's self-regard a little comical, I'm not panicked by the fact that there are people who don't, you know, look like me there. That's a good thing. Shit, there are people who don't look like me *here*, and I'm okay with that.
But it's sad how predictable it was that the anti-NYC rhetoric would be flung at Giuliani. For the people Thompson hopes to reach with this crap, living in NYC is like showing Escape 2000 on a loop: a burned-out dystopia suitable to those who are not white, not straight, not native speakers of English, not Christian, and some, not even Republicans. I hear they even let Wolcott live there! And why would anyone want to be America’s Mayor© of that shithole?
Of course, this doesn't actually mean Giuliani *can't* use his experience as America’s Mayor© as a campaign issue. I mean, if NYC is the evil opposite of America, and everyone there hates his fucking guts (except in Staten Island, natch), then logically, he should be as popular as a baseball hero everywhere else in America. Or at least in Enchanting New Mexico.