Hungry for Votes

Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Guiliani didn't visit Geno's for the food. Outspoken Philadelphians weigh in on the messy implications of Cheesesteakgate.

Add Comment Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Oct. 17, 2007

On Oct. 1 GOP front-running presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, came to our city.

On the way to a fundraising event, he stopped by Geno's Steaks at Ninth and Passyunk, and embraced Joey Vento, the biggest symbol of ignorance, intolerance and immigrant-bashing in the U.S. today.

Vento's thinly disguised abhorrence of brown people--don't just take our word for it; his vile screeds are available with the simplest of searches on YouTube for all to see--has been an ongoing embarrassment to the city and to the brotherly love we allegedly stand for.

Though widely known for the discourteous sign he posted in the window of his cheesesteak stand--"THIS IS AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING 'SPEAK ENGLISH'"--Vento's ever-multiplying xenophobic statements about Hispanics on the Fox News Channel and at rallies around the country reveal a far deeper viciousness.

Steaking a claim: The candidate panders on immigration at Geno's.

At an anti-immigrant rally in Harrisburg last month organized to show support for Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta and his Illegal Immigration Relief Act, Vento said the following:

>> "[Illegal Hispanics] are killing, like, 25 of us a day ... molesting about eight children a day ... All we're getting is drug dealers and murderers."

>> "These illegal invaders ... are not the kind of immigrants our grandparents were ... They knew to be successful in America, you have to speak English."

>> "You come here, pop a baby, pick it up and take it back to Mexico."

>> "These people are coming here--they don't want to assimilate; they want us to learn their language and their culture ... stay there."

>> "Every other group that came in here, they knew their trick to success was speaking our language."

But Joey Vento is a cheesesteak stand owner. Why should we give a shit what he thinks?

His 15 minutes should've been up before they started.

Rudy Giuliani, however, is another story. Giuliani was mayor of the biggest, most progressive city in the world, a man many allegedly take seriously.

As mayor, he spoke out eloquently on behalf of illegal immigrants, saying we should look for ways to make it easier for them to become citizens.

In 1994 he told The New York Times: "If you come here, and you work hard, and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you're one of the people who we want in this city."

Giuliani was "a god in the mid-1990s on this issue," Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, told The Washington Post in May.

But now Giuliani wants to become the presidential nominee of his party and ultimately the leader of the free world.

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