Why Giuliani is toast

January 9, 2008

For the better part of 2007, Rudy Giuliani worried me, in large part because he’s the least capable candidate I can think of. In recent months, however, my concern changed to glee, as Giuliani’s campaign went from frontrunner to laughing stock.

Now, I realize that die-hard Giuliani backers continue to perceive the landscape as favorable to the former mayor’s chances. Huckabee won Iowa, hinting at a wide-open race. McCain won in New Hampshire, suggesting an even more wide-open race. If Giuliani can just hold on until Feb. 5, his skip-the-early-states strategy may actually pay dividends.

Except, it won’t. For one thing, Giuliani and his team fibbed quite a bit about their interest in New Hampshire, where they tried far harder than they let on.

Though former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has generally attributed his fourth place finish in New Hampshire to a campaign strategy that focuses on larger, delegate-rich states holding later contests, statistics compiled by ABC News indicate that he was clearly competing to win in the Granite State as hard — if not harder — than many of his rivals.

Statistics compiled by ABC News Political Unit and ABC News’ team of off-air reporters indicate that Giuliani held more events in this first-in-the-nation primary state than any other Republican except for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in neighboring Massachusetts. He also spent more on TV ads than anyone except for Romney and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

In Iowa, Giuliani rationalized his dreadful, sixth-place finish by arguing (after a few words about 9/11) that he never even tried to compete in the state. But in New Hampshire, where he was the frontrunner up until a few months ago, he made a concerted effort to actually do well — and failed miserably. Whatever Giuliani was selling, New Hampshire voters weren’t buying.

It seems to be part of a trend.

Ask Giuliani about his chances moving forward, and after the obligatory non-sequiturs about 9/11, he’ll invariably emphasize Florida, which he’s long considered his firewall state.

And how’s that working for the former mayor now? Not well.

A new Datamar poll in Florida finds Mike Huckabee leading the Republican presidential primary race with 24% support, followed by Mitt Romney at 20%, Sen. John McCain at 18% and Rudy Giuliani now back in fourth place at 16%.

So, he lost in the early state where he wasn’t trying, he lost in the early state where he was trying, and he’s losing in the early state that’s supposed to propel him to victory.

It’s reached the point that Giuliani is now advertising on at least three Spanish-language television stations in Miami — in Spanish, of course — despite taking a firm stand on behalf of English-only measures.

I’m tempted to wonder where Giuliani backers would go if he dropped out of the race, but I keep running into the same question: what supporters?

Don’t go away mad, Rudy, just go away.

From your blog to God’s eyes!

Please, put a stake in his heart and bury the ghoul.

There is no one, Huckabee included, who is a greater danger to our Constitution and our Freedoms than Guiliani.

  • Don’t tell me we won’t have Rudy to kick around for much longer … it’s such fun sport. Besides, his theater of the absurd on security issues is good for showing the rest of the nation how hyperbolic Republican fear mongering truly is.

  • The Giuliani campaign reminds me of the old joke about the marketing department.

    The marketing department had designed the best, most expensive advertising campaign ever for their new brand of dog food – TV and print ads with cute puppies, coupons, samples, the whole works. Yet sales were awful. The VP of marketing was called onto the carpet by the CEO, who demanded an explanation for the failure of the marketing campaign. After some hemming and hawing, the VP said, “Sir, there was just one problem that we haven’t been able to overcome.”

    “What’s that?” growled the CEO.

    “The dogs just won’t eat it!”

    Is inedible dog food too cruel a metaphor for Rudy? Nhaaaa.

  • I have an idea that could save Rudy’s campaign and/or make him into a hero… He could volunteer to go fight fires with the NY Fire department, and show them what a great leader he is. He could take a radio and lead the way into each building and they could call to warn him if it’s not safe to be in there anymore.

    Campaigns going down in flames is usually just an expression, but maybe Rudy could be an exception.

  • Rudy, what time is it? 9:11 of course.
    Rudy, why is the sky blue? 9-11 of course.
    etc. etc. etc.

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  • There is no doubt Rudy will win the Republican Nomination given his unorthodox big state strategy. Hizzoner is playing chess while everyone else in the GOP field is playing checkers.

  • I’ve been with your frustration from the beginning. Like you, totally amazed at the free pass the press was giving Guiliani and frustrated that supporters were blind to him being such an ego maniac and such a joke as a presidential candidate. You kept implying “sooner or later” people would see him for what he really is. Da-Dah! The nerve of a guy like this thinking anyone would actually take him serious as a presidential candidate and the fact that some people did is truly amazing. But you had this campaign pegged all the way. Rudy was such an embarrassment to the election process that his time to be pushed out couldn’t happen fast enough. Looney Rudy has finally been exposed.

  • I wrote: “There is no one, Huckabee included, who is a greater danger to our Constitution and our Freedoms than Guiliani.”

    Shade Tail wrote “Mitt Romney. He has stated, quite blandly, that the President has absolute power and is fully above the law.”

    Scan the article and you’ll note that Guiliani doesn’t even respond to the questionaire. So I combine my suspicion of his intent with my knowledge of his previous actions to define him as the most dangerous.

    Not that you don’t have a good case.

  • I’ve mentioned in other places (and I’m not the first one) that it really looks like Rudy’s suffering from PTSD. As time goes forward, his inability to stop talking about 9/11 seems less and less to be about JUST using fear as a political tool to further his goals for power, but also an inability to just…get…past it. NOT forget it, but get past it. Maybe because it was such a traumatic event. Maybe because he was never more popular than he was in those days immediately following the attack. I think it’s a combination of the two, in varying degrees depending on the day or the stress Rudy’s under at any given time. But it is, IMHO, post-traumatic stress, what makes it different is that, because Rudy was such an egomaniac BEFORE 9/11, he’s able to compartmentalize the stress, function with it, let it become part of his personality instead of being the stereotypical hiding-under-the-bed, can’t-face-the-outside-world nervous-breakdown-sufferer. But a breakdown will come, and I for one, would definitely NOT want it to happen at a time when Rudy had access to the most sophisticated & lethal military the world’s ever known.

    I don’t have as much hate for Rudy as some folks do, though I wouldn’t say I like the guy either. I liked him more in the past, when he was for choice, and gay rights. I once had hopes the social liberal inside of him might one day win out over the violence-loving thug, become more responsible, a better leader and more human. I don’t see that day as ever coming, but I certainly hope he gets help, not only because it’s the humane (dare I say, Christian) hope to have, but because he has a pulpit, he has a voice that SOME people still heed, and his emotional problems could easily influence theirs, hate breeding more hate, which is something this nation sorely does not need.

  • jen flowers said: “Who will Rudy’s 9% move to? McCain?”

    No, a truely tough New Yorker…

    … Hillary Clinton 😉

  • I believe McCain’s resurgence is from former Guiliani supporters who came to realize their guy has too much baggage to win.

  • this morning on my way to my office, on NPR they were trying to make sense of the ‘wrong’ poll numbers and interviewed some of those so called ‘undecided’ One of the Republican women interviewed said she voted for Rudy, after considering the other field, she also liked Fred and Duncan Hunter…. Now if those so called undecided voters, consider those candidates as their choices, it doesn’t look good for America. After all this woman ‘sounded’ normal, could even be your neighbor, in a way of speaking.

    It is beyond me how deep you have to have your head buried in the sand, in order to consider any of the people she mentioned as candidates capable of being President of the USA.

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