CLIVE, Iowa – Rudy Giuliani‘s campaign was rocked by controversy yesterday when a prominent New Hampshire volunteer resigned after making inflammatory comments about Muslims in an interview.
John Deady, co-chairman of New Hampshire Veterans for Rudy, recently told Britain’s Guardian newspaper that Muslims are “madmen” who need to be “chased back to their caves.”
Deady later elaborated on his remark, saying we need to “get rid” of Muslims to the liberal blog site Talking Points Memo.
“When I say ‘get rid of them,’ I wasn’t necessarily referring to genocide. What I was referring to is, stand up to them every time they stick up their heads and attack us,” Deady told TPM.
“We can’t afford to say, ‘We’ll try diplomacy.’ They don’t respond to it. If you look into Islamic tradition, a treaty is only good for five years. We’re not dealing with a rational mindset here. We’re dealing with madmen,” Deady said.
After a rally at his Iowa campaign headquarters yesterday morning, Giuliani sought to distance himself from Deady’s comments.
Giuliani said: “Everyone knows my views. I expressed them the night of Sept. 11, 2001. These acts should never involve group blame.” He said Muslims were good, decent people, but singled out a “small group . . . of Islamic terrorists who have perverted . . . a great religion.”
Before Deady’s resignation, a group of Pakistani nationals who gathered in Brooklyn yesterday for a prayer service honoring slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto blasted the Giuliani volunteer.
“People need to understand there are madmen in every religion, and not only in Islam. They are everywhere,” said Shafqat Tanweer, outside the Makki Mosque in Coney Island. A compatriot added, “Anybody with any sense would not make that comment.”
Giuliani, who is campaigning in New Hampshire today and all week ahead of the Granite State’s Jan. 8 primary, has downplayed the importance of Iowa in his campaign strategy. He skipped the Republican Party’s straw poll in August and has not put up one TV ad on local stations.
He has made far fewer campaign appearances than Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee, and hopes to compete for third place in a caucus dominated by social conservatives”We campaign a lot here. We have a very good organization here. I believe we’re going to do well,” Giuliani told Iowa supporters. But he said that with more than half the states voting by Feb. 5, it was sensible to focus on big states like Florida and California.