Guiliani Comes to Pensacola

Approximately 200 people packed tightly into the Fish House Wednesday evening despite the cold weather to hear what Rudy Giuliani had to say. The most popular issues that surfaced on his campaign stop were national security, the economy, and tax cuts.

Giuliani, who has been campaigning at an accelerated rate, is counting on winning the Florida primary on Jan. 29 to secure his spot in the presidential race.

Many spectators, like John Hardman clutched copies of Giuliani’s book “Leadership” hoping to get his signature at the event. Hardman said that the book was a factor in his support for the former mayor of New York City.

“I read Giuliani’s book, Leadership after 9/11 and was impressed with his role in handling one of the worst attacks America has had, he handled it very well.”

Like Many Floridians, Kate Casher, a sophomore at the University of West Florida remains an undecided voter. “I haven’t made up my mind yet, so I thought I would come out and see what he stands for,” said Casher.

Within seconds of entering the Fish House Giuliani began the rally with the issue that has been a concern for many American’s in the past few months; the economy.

“The Democrats wants to raise you taxes, do you think having more taxes is a good thing or bad thing?” he asked the crowd.

“Bad thing,” the crowd enthusiastically shot back.

Giuliani said the he believes a smaller government gives more control to its people. He said he wants to lower taxes by 25 to 30 percent. He said by getting rid of the inheritance tax, and death tax he would “fight the fight by fighting for all of them.”

“I trust you more than I trust the government with your money,” he told the crowd.

Giuliani claimed that for him, security comes first. He said that America needs to be kept on the offensive in Iraq and work to stabilize the country.

“We want to have success and victory and American should never aim for anything less,” he said.

In an attempt to boost national security Giuliani said he wants to increase the military by adding at least 10 new combat brigades to the Army and expanding the navy to more than 300 ships.

His stand on increasing the military and decreasing taxes gained mixed reactions from spectators.

Alan Huntley, a 40-year-old Republican is a supporter of Giuliani and said security is the most important issue to him personally. “I like the idea of having a stronger military, I lived in South Africa for a while and you really don’t care about your economy when bombs are going off,” he said. Huntley also said that the surge of terrorism threatens the U.S. and it is important that our country is prepared.


Charlene Smith, 60, had doubts about Giuliani’s plan to increase the military. “He has good ideas but I didn’t hear anything about how he would implement these ideas.” Smith said. “I would like to know how he is going to increase the military without having a draft.”