What does former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani have in the cards for possible future runs? All reliable sources have said that he has ruled out any attempt to unseat current New York Governor, David Patterson in 2010 race. Nevertheless, speculation is rampant about the possibility of a Guiliani challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand, the current holder of Hillary Clinton’s old Senate Seat. Currently, the polls are favorable if Gillibrand is his challenger, but New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo could still throw his hat into the gubernatorial or Senate race. The polls show a Guiliani-Cuomo Senate Showdown going to Cuomo at the moment.

I hope Guiliani does run. I thoroughly enjoy seeing where he falls on the issues day-to-day. Do we all remember a pro-choice, pro-gay rights, anti-gun New York Republican that every Democrat could love, because I do. But we also remember the 2008 Presidential candidate who stood for the closed-minded, conservative, and regressive Republican party line. Guiliani is just a fascinating phenomenon. He is a Republican who could only fit the Republican mold if it was completely reshaped. In 2008, we saw a pathetic and ultimately ineffective attempt on his part to reshape himself. While recognizing that Joe Biden doesn’t get nearly enough credit for analyzing the politics of Rudy Guiliani in the best way I have yet to hear, Guiliani is also the poster boy for an insidious Republican tactic: fear. I would be naive at best to say that only the Republicans are guilty of using fear to win elections (look at my idol, Hillary, and the 3 a.m. phone call), but Republicans do it in a way that appeals to the worst in us, and they do it very, very often. Americans deserve thoughtful and engaged dialogue from their leaders. Americans deserve more than a noun, a verb, and 9/11. So let’s not only hope that Guiliani is never elected to high office, let’s be wary of any politician who takes up his tactic of patronizing fear, and be ready to push them out.