Rudy: Yes, I Voted For McGovern, But I Actually Preferred Nixon

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Interesting story at Talking Points Memo by Greg Sargent:

As he seeks to court GOP primary voters, one potential sticking point has been his opposition to the Vietnam War in the early 1970s and his vote for Dem George McGovern in 1972. But Rudy has now concocted a new explanation for that vote: He didn't mean it.

Or so he says in a new interview with The Weekly Standard:

"I had traditionally been a Democrat," Giuliani told me in a recent interview in Las Vegas. "It was almost like a reflex mode. I actually remember saying to myself, 'If I was a person really deciding who should be president right now, I'd probably vote for Nixon, because I think the country would be safer with Nixon.'"

Hmmm. Does this mean that Rudy didn't vote for the candidate who he himself thought would keep the country safer? Seems a bit odd. Foreign policy and nationalsecurity issues were kind of front and center during that campaign.

I was not born in 1972, but it's clear that Rudy pivoted and postured where quite a bit, providing explanations that weren't fully representative.

The article also delves into Rudy's switch to the GOP, which came in 1980. In the piece Rudy seems to suggest that this was driven partly by his discontent with Dems on foreign policy. But as the Standard article accurately points out, Rudy's switch to the GOP neatly coincided with his desire to get a political appointment from the newly-minted Reagan administration.

Interesting. Sounds like a power-motivated, complete-party flip-flop.