The Daily Background

Gays for Giuliani? That’s the name of one group that’s looking to support former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in a very public way.

Ryan J. Davis, a New York-based independent film director who leads the group wrote on the Huffington Post blog that he hopes to “educate Republican primary voters about the Rudy that [gays] know and love by pointing to his actual, impressive and progressive record.”

Davis, who created a 1 minute mock ad for Giuliani showcasing some stereotypical gay men expressing their support for Giuliani, plans to play off perceived anti-equality bigotry in the GOP primary electorate to make a statement (watch the ad at right). The video, which was uploaded to YouTube on August 6th, has now been viewed over 40,000 times.

“I was proud to have a mayor who was such an open and friendly ally in the struggle for equal rights,” Davis wrote of Giuliani’s relatively pro-equality record as Mayor of New York City. “Sadly, things have changed now that he’s looking for votes in South Carolina.”

“It’s as if Rudy has suddenly become afraid of gay people. So, we’ve trotted out a few stereotypes that will surely frighten him and maybe even some of his new rightwing supporters. Rudy, it’s time to ‘come out of the closet’ as a gay rights supporter.” Giuliani, who has supported civil unions in the past and even lived with a gay couple during part of his term as Mayor of NYC, declined to attend a debate focused on LGBT issues earlier this month sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign and LOGO, a gay-themed network owned by Viacom and MTV.

A veteran of the Howard Dean campaign, Davis told The Daily Background that he is filing paperwork with the FEC to create an official Gays for Giuliani PAC and that they “hope to get something up in a month or so.” Davis said he had already received a small number of donations to get a 30 second version of the advertisement on the air in South Carolina, although he had not yet started fundraising in earnest. He says the size of the ad buy will depend on how many people are willing to donate.

Davis says he is not aligned with any particular campaign yet.

South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary on January 19th, will be a key test of whether or not Giuliani can carry his appeal to Southern voters, traditionally a staple of Republican campaigns. Some political analysts such as Chuck Todd, Political Director of NBC, see the Southern contest as key to the GOP nomination. “I do think South Carolina is the showdown state,” Todd said on a recent episode of Meet The Press.

“If this, this is [former Massachusetts Governor Mitt] Romney and Giuliani, and I’m sort of leaning that that is where this thing is headed… neither one of them fits South Carolina, so that will be the showdown state.”

South Carolina Republican primaries are not new to controversial, and sometimes political maneuvers. In fact, this isn’t even the first time that political operatives have tried to play off of bigotry among GOP voters in the state. In 2000, supporters of then-candidate George W. Bush’s presidential campaign hired a polling firm to conduct “push-polls” in South Carolina which suggested to voters that rival John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. Bush won the contested primary a short time later.

Filed under: Z-Feature