He has us right where he wants us

January 4, 2008

We’ve finally reached a point in the nominating process in which we can stop talking about Rudy Giuliani, right? After all, he came in a distant sixth in Iowa — after having led the field as recently as the summer — and Ron Paul nearly tripled his support. For a candidate who was once labeled the “frontrunner,” it has to be an embarrassing turn of events.

Or not. John Podhoretz, a leading neocon, writing at Commentary Magazine, believes the former mayor has everyone right where he wants them.

On MSNBC, Rudy Giuliani is making a very smiley, happy showing of himself. The result in Iowa could not have been better for Giuliani tactically. Romney has been injured. Huckabee won, but did not apparently win by a huge margin, and there won’t be many other states where evangelicals make up fully three-fifths of the primary electorate. And John McCain did not, it seems, come in third with a surprising showing, but fourth with a very modest showing. If McCain beats Romney in New Hampshire, Romney will have a difficult time going on — but McCain clearly hasn’t yet turned the corner and brought conservative Republicans back in his corner. And Fred Thompson’s third-place showing wasn’t impressive enough to kick his campaign back to life.

With no one especially strong on the Republican side through the first few states, the Giuliani strategy of betting it all on Florida on January 29 and the big states on February 5 is looking better than it did a week ago.

I see. So, Giuliani will keep losing actual contests, hemorrhaging money and support, while other candidates manage to win real-live contests, but this will leave Giuliani in a position to get ahead. By this logic, the results “could not have been better for Giuliani tactically.”

I’ve seen blind optimism, but this is ridiculous.

As for Giuliani personally, it’s hard not to love his reaction to the results in Iowa.

He flatlined in Iowa and he’s struggling in New Hampshire, but Rudy Giuliani shook off the early-state blues Thursday as only he can.

“None of this worries me – Sept. 11, there were times I was worried,” Giuliani said.

Yes, even a sixth-place finish in Iowa means it’s time to re-emphasize 9/11. The man is a walking, talking parody.

Substitute the word “Gulianni” with “McCain” and then add an “almost” and it’s no longer optimism, it is reality.

  • Why is this reminiscent of lowering taxes improving everything from the stars and moons to running the government?

    What a voo doo methodology of running for president. Typically republican! 🙂

  • If Rudy was second in every primary where the candidates split delegates (not where the winner takes all), and all the primaries were split between different winners, would this still be a strategy?

    Rudy says he’s going to win the majority of the first 29 caucuses and primaries. I don’t know where that gets him (through Februrary 5th at least), but I imagine he still could lose.

    I think he’s banking on California.

    But I hope his chances are nil. Really, I hope that. He’s the absolute worst candidate, being the candidate of the NeoCon/NeoLiberal/Chicago School of Economics/Rip off the World and rape their children wing of the Republican’t party.

    But they win (or cheat). So who knows.

  • OK, Ghoolie’s gratitious nineleven remark made me laugh but Podhurts reminds me of the “More US casualites in Iraq is a good sign!” gibberish.

    How can we send these wanks back to the parallel universe from whence they slithered?

  • look, it IS still early, and anything CAN happen. However, for anyone to try to spin the sort of best case scenarios necessary to make Rudy come out on top now is just blind naivete. You might as well say “if Huckabee, Romney, McCain & Thompson are all in cars that collide at a four-way stop sign, and all go into comas, then Rudy’s got this all wrapped up.”

  • I think it speaks to the enormity of Giuliani’s ego, and his investment in the grandiose delusion that 9/11 is his ticket to the next stop on the journey to total power.

    He seems to have no concept of momentum – that as his rivals continue to win races, they continue to shift – and build – momentum for whatever comes next. Giuliani seems to think that Florida and all the other delgate-rich states have been blacked out of primary coverage, and his competitors banned from campaigning there, so that on the momentous day when they go to the polls, they will be voting in a time warp.

    Really – am I the only one who thinks we have yet to establish the bounds of Rudy’s mental dysfunction?

  • Rudy’s campaign goes to 9/11. JPod is making a Spinal Tap reference that delights playful Straussians everywhere. It’s a “Boston isn’t a very big college town” or “Our Audience is becoming more selective” type of a line.

  • I think Podhoretz’s thick mane of backhair has finally coiled its way into his brain. What an idiot.

    Maybe Rudy’s a big fan of the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail.

  • I believe the poetic justice gods have decreed that Rudee’s poll numbers will reach 9-11 levels. That is to say, they will bounce back and forth between 9% and 11%.

  • Rudy remains a “national frontrunner” only because the campaign hasn’t really started in most of the nation. Granted, Rudy didn’t campaign much if at all in Iowa, but shouldn’t the “national frontrunner” have attracted more support in Iowa than Rudy did? Something greater than zero?

    After poor showings in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Rudy will be finished, his shield of inevitability shattered like Hillary’s. Florida won’t save Rudy because his campaigning only causes him to lose support, not increase it.

    I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Huckabee is going to win the nomination. Republicans have a strong attraction to amiable dunces.

  • If Rudy is “banking on California” he’s overdrawn.

    The CA Republican Party went to proportional delegate selection this year, with three delegates per precinct (regardless of the number of Rs in the precinct) plus a handfull of “at large” chosen by the winner of the most precincts.

    Nobody but Ron Paul’s people seem to have noticed this. The latter have been campaigning hravily in ALL precincts and can be expected to pick up a lot of deligates, especially in the R-poor districts.

  • What I found interesting in watching coverage (limited to Corporately Nice News [CNN] and My Sort – Nice Corporate News [MS-NBC]) was that on MSNBC the only ‘candidate’ who I saw interviewed was the Rudy and that was by Tweety “Man-Crush” Matthews.

    Of course Tweety had to misinterpret & mislead about the Rudy’s billing practices that were used to hide the billing to the city for services rendered to the Rudy’s mistress.

    I continue to believe that Bush is a closet sadist & that the Rudy is just a more open meaner version of the same!

  • Sorry Podhoretz, Chris Mathews, Sean Hannity and the rest of Guiliani’s man-lovers… YOU LOSE ..!!!

  • ***believes the former mayor has everyone right where he wants them.***

    Ri-iiight. And Napoleon had the British right where he wanted them, too—at Waterloo, after getting his a$$ waxed by the Russians. I mean, come on now—the Russians? The early 19th-century gadfly of European military machines?

    Oh, look—I just invoked a comparison with a power-crazed, megalo-manic European dictator bent on continental domination and racial/ethnic, nationalist-centric superiority—and i didn’t risk the Wrath of The Godwin Thingie.

    I think it’s safe to say that GhoulChild will find himself surrounded by his campaign posters, spending eternity rotting in some landfill. the type of people he seems to prefer hanging out with don’t like losers. Losers are very expensive—and they don’t keep secrets very well, once they’ve lost as badly as GhoulChild did last night….

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  • Watch out– the Mascara Miracle is ready to pull another great victory out of his ass, so to speak, in New Hapshire!

  • Look to Giuliani’s new ad as described in NYT yesterday. He is the self-annointed leader of The Party of Order, and will red bait Hillary till the cows come home, just as he did over the MoveOn “Petraus/Betray Us” ad, soon to be followed by aped by me-too resolutions passed in the House and the Senate.
    Get ready, the monster has not begun to punch.

  • Look, Podhoretz is a leading luminary of that odd ilk who thought it was strategically in the best interests of the United States to invade a country unprovoked, lie about the things that were used as justification, fail to secure the weapons left behind by a fleeing enemy, – and to do it on the cheap, with too few soldiers and even fewer units of armor. If they can spin Iraq into the strategic salvation of the US, it’s really nothing at all to spin Iowa into the moment Rudy really broke ahead of the pack…

  • Steve said: “Oh, look—I just invoked a comparison with a power-crazed, megalo-manic European dictator bent on continental domination and racial/ethnic, nationalist-centric superiority—and i didn’t risk the Wrath of The Godwin Thingie.”

    Actually, no you didn’t. Napoleon wasn’t bent on racial/ethnic nationalist-centric superiority. If for no other reason than he was Corsican and not French.

    Nepotism now, that’s the ticket. He was bent on putting his family on the thrones of Europe. In fact if the Tsar had ponied up one of his sisters to be Nappy’s second wife there’d probably still be a Bonaparte on the throne of France today.

    And even the Russians will admit that Napoleon lost to the Russian winter and not the Russian army.

    But back to Rudy. It occurs to me we are buying into just the idiocy that Iowans want us to by putting their straw poll and district delegation selection processes “first in the nation”. We’re counting Rudy out.

    That’s wrong I say, WRONG!

    Much as I would like to. Iowa hasn’t even picked it’s delegates to the nation conventions and won’t until April. So right now the count is:

    Huckabee: 0
    Romney: 0
    Thompson: 0
    McCain: 0
    Paul: 0
    Guiliani: 0
    Hunter: 0
    Keyes: 0

    Seems a wide open race to me.

  • The man is a walking, talking parody.

    What makes me queasy is that the media still seems to think it’s important that we hear the man’s opinions. He makes less ense than JRS Jr, and yet, there he is on my TeeVee every now and then.

    Why is this clown on my teevee? Is Bozo unavailable?

  • Giuliani is a real competitor, except when he doesn’t compete. Or won’t compete. September Eleventh changed everything. Mostly in further inflating the fuhrer-like ego of The Rude Guy. Follow me. I’m a leader. Even as I go nowhere.

  • Instead of fighting over who gets the nomination, why don’t Huckabee, Romney, McCain and Ron Paul meet Giuliani at his place for drinks to discuss it? He’s open-minded.

  • The only way Rudy could be in a better tactical position, according to his logic, would be if he had never declared as a candidate at all.

  • Mark said: “The only way Rudy could be in a better tactical position, according to his logic, would be if he had never declared as a candidate at all.”

    That’s Newt Gingrich’s position. Don’t you know, he’s waiting for America to proclaim him President.

  • No need to focus on Rudy losing so badly since the entire Republican field lost. The Republican hierarchy hates Huckabee so now it’s off to full character assassination mode. Romney had his perfect hair mussed up as we now know for a fact that Christian righties won’t vote for a Mormon. The world’s most apathetic candidate came in third. McCain is reviled enough he could only manage fourth. Probably the only guy the party honchos would hate more than Huckabee, Ron Paul, came in fifth, and the guy that represents the previous Republican strategy for winning by trying to scare votes out of people is a distant sixth. These are dark days for Republicans … thanks to themselves.

  • #25
    Newt may be waiting for America to proclaim him President, but don’t count on it…

    True Bushites know that what is wanted is a ‘brokered’ convention where Jeb can be given the Repugnican nomination… Even then, we would have to wait to have the Supremes ‘proclaim’ him president…

  • Reminds me of that old “Cheers” line where Harry Anderson is losing at poker and tells Sam, “I’m just trying to give him a false sense of security.” Sam replies, “I think you’re giving him a genuine sense of security.”

  • MichaelMcC said:
    “If Rudy is “banking on California” he’s overdrawn.

    The CA Republican Party went to proportional delegate selection this year, with three delegates per precinct (regardless of the number of Rs in the precinct) plus a handfull of “at large” chosen by the winner of the most precincts.

    Nobody but Ron Paul’s people seem to have noticed this. The latter have been campaigning heavily in ALL precincts and can be expected to pick up a lot of delegates, especially in the R-poor districts.”

    Thank you MichaelMcC.

    That’s what I love about TCBR, you learn some really important things (Zeitgeist’s explanation of Iowa Caucuses yesterday, California today).

    And any day you learn something new is a good day.

  • So when Rudy does not do well in Florida – after all, a good part of the state is former New Yorkers, will the pundits start wondering when he will drop out of the race? Somehow I doubt it. Matthews in particular seems very invested in his campaign.

  • What’s that sound you hear? It’s the sound of Rudy, sashaying across the room in delicate and fabulous leisure-wear towards the bar, to mix another drink for another power-broker he’s winning over on the way to the big-time. Do not discount this man’s skill as a hostess.

  • Is this the strategy the Romans used against Hannibal in the 2nd Punic War? Is Rudy that smart?

  • Rudy’s current loopy optimism merely indicates he isn’t out of money yet. Look for future advertising cash to be placed in exorbitant amounts with friends, from whom he can recover some of it later.

    What, that’s illegal?

  • “Nepotism now, that’s the ticket. He was bent on putting his family on the thrones of Europe. In fact if the Tsar had ponied up one of his sisters to be Nappy’s second wife there’d probably still be a Bonaparte on the throne of France today.”

    Lance, I’m not arguing with your overall point at all, but, actually, Napoleon married the DAUGHTER of the Emperor Franz of AUSTRIA, a sorta, sometimes ally. They had a son, deemed “King of the Romans”, who died as a young man, after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and exile to St Helena.

  • As usual, the “liberals” have it wrong:

    So, Giuliani will keep losing actual contests, hemorrhaging money and support,…

  • As usual, the “liberals” have it wrong:

    So, Giuliani will keep losing actual contests, hemorrhaging money and support,…

    He isn’t hemorrhaging money, if one bothers to actually find out what his strategy is.

    Whether or not his strategy will work or not remains to be seen. But, that isn’t the point; it’s actually that why should anyone care what a “lib” would say about Giuliani anyway?

  • SteveL, How many posts does it take a conservative to express a very small thought?

  • Re #34.

    Phoebes, you missed the “IF” in my statement. Before Napoleon married his Austrian wife he was trying for a Russian Tsarina. Unfortunately, effect has his charm had been at Tilset in 1807, once Tsar Alexander left his influence the effect started to wear off.

    And so sadly, conflict and war arose again to mar the face of Europe.

  • “Phoebes, you missed the “IF” in my statement. Before Napoleon married his Austrian wife he was trying for a Russian Tsarina. Unfortunately, effect has his charm had been at Tilset in 1807, once Tsar Alexander left his influence the effect started to wear off.”

    OOOPs, Lance, you’re right! I did miss your “if”. Sorry about that.

  • You’re forgetting that Rudy’s the neocon candidate. No doubt he ‘knows’ something we don’t, just like Hillary’s “inevitability” folks do.

    The same people who’ll arrange votes to be lost in the shuffle, or who’ll ‘find’ extra ballots (say, 350% of the population of that district, e.g.) that’ll make him president have probably already assured him of the nomination, and no doubt, the election.

    Besides, actual delegates for the primary will vote however they want (have been instructed/paid) to do, so regardless of caucus results, we may very well see a Rudy vs. Hillary contest this fall.

  • “None of this worries me – Sept. 11, there were times I was worried”

    I think the statement is brilliant. It has folks talking about him even if disparagingly.

  • Man, Giuliani is such a terrible campaigner. I live in NY & it looks like a rerun of his failed Senate campaign.

  • Let us never let Rudolph forget, that 9/11 happened on his watch, and that is not the good thing that he’s trying to make it out to be.

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