Giuliani Urges Conservatives To Look Beyond Differences

ABC News’ David Chalian Reports: The socially moderate Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, R-N.Y., entered the belly of the conservative beast Friday afternoon and urged the Republican activists at CPAC to look beyond the differences many of them may have with him on a variety issues and instead look to their common ground.  Giuliani, as he often does, invoked the name of his conservative hero for whom he worked in the early 1980s.

"Ronald Reagan used to say ‘my 80 percent ally is not my 20 percent enemy,’" said Giuliani.  "We all don’t see eye to eye on everything.  You and I have a lot of common beliefs that are the same and we have some that are different. . . We all don’t agree on everything.  I don’t agree with myself on everything," he added.

Unable to offer up the traditional social conservative red meat often found flying from the podium out into the ballroom in such events, Giuliani took a different approach. 

First, he had a true blue conservative beloved by many in Republican circles — syndicated columnist George Will — introduce him onto the stage offering a glowing assessment of his eight year mayoralty in New York City as the best of example of consecutive conservative governing the country had ever seen.  (The introduction went a long way to distance Giuliani from his immediate preceding speaker, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre who said, "Everything they do in New York City on guns smacks of hypocrisy.")

Second, Giuliani dedicated most of his remarks to his accomplishments in reducing crime in New York City, moving New Yorkers from welfare to work, and to his commitment to overhauling the country’s education system by bringing more free market style competition to it to better prepare Americans to compete in a global economy.  His discussion of all three policy areas seemed welcome among the conservative crowd, which offered muted applause and appeared willing to allow Giuliani to make his arguments despite the differences he may have with them.

Of course, Giuliani couldn’t resist a little anti-Hillary Clinton red meat before leaving.  They were, however briefly, opponents in the Senate race in 2000.  ABC News’ Jake Tapper reports that when Giuliani was "was discussing his attempts to reform the New York City school system, he said, ‘I made mistakes. But I’m willing to admit them and apologize for them.’"

"There was no response from crowd. (Faint sound of crickets.)  Giuliani replied, ‘I don’t know if you got that,’" adds Tapper.