It seems like quite a while ago, but earlier this year, Rudy Giuliani actually intended to be a force in the Iowa caucuses. He campaigned frequently in the state, held a lot of town-hall meetings, and through around June, actually lead in Iowa polls.
Then, of course, Republicans got a good look at the guy, heard what he had to say, learned about Giuliani’s background, and dropped him like a hot potato. His campaign pulled out of the Ames straw poll, and Giuliani’s support in the state has been in free-fall ever since.
Which leads, of course, to New Hampshire, where Giuliani expected to be a serious player. Like Iowa, the former mayor spent quite a bit of time in the Granite State, and in the early fall, was a close second in the polls. Then, a funny thing happened. (via Kos)
Rudolph Giuliani’s decision to largely abandon the early voting state of New Hampshire and concentrate his efforts on the Florida primary three weeks later reflects an uncomfortable truth for the former New York mayor: The more he campaigned in the Granite State and the more he spent on advertising there, the more his poll numbers dropped.
Mr. Giuliani appears to be making a virtue of necessity by sounding the retreat in New Hampshire, where he continues to be outgunned by the Republican front-runner there, Mitt Romney, and where he has been beaten into second place by the resurgent campaign of Senator McCain.
It’s striking to see the trend-lines. In just Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and nationally, Giuliani’s support, steady most of the year, dropped sharply a couple of months ago, and shows no signs of recovering.
There are a variety of possible explanations, but I’m partial to the least-complicated one: Giuliani just doesn’t wear well over time.
To be sure, the former mayor’s flailing fortunes began right around the time the Shag Fund scandal began. But let’s face it — as damaging as the controversy was, political reporters showed interest in the story for about a day or two. Giuliani and his aides came up with some bogus explanation, the media bought into the nonsense, and most voters probably didn’t hear about it. In other words, it’s probably not the cause for the decline.
Similarly, Giuliani’s downturn came around the same time as Mike Huckabee’s upturn. But the political landscape suggests the two are unrelated — Giuliani and Huckabee appeal to two entirely different types of voters. It seems highly unlikely GOP voters started switching their allegiance from the morally-challenged Yankee running on a national security platform to the Baptist preacher running on, well, whatever it is Huckabee’s platform is right now.
No, the likely culprit is that people just aren’t buying what Giuliani’s selling. He thought he could 9/11 his way to the nomination (yes, in Giuliani’s case, 9/11 is a verb), but when voters scratched beneath the surface, they weren’t impressed.
To his credit, way back in February, Kevin Drum suggested this might happen.
The average voter has vague, positive impressions of Rudy thanks to his 9/11 heroics, and these people are going to be unpleasantly surprised when they see him for the first time in years and he turns out to be nastier than they remember (not to mention being freighted down by a closet full of skeletons they didn’t know about). He has nowhere to go but down.
And for the most part, 10 months later, that’s pretty much what’s happened. People got to know Rudy … and then beat a trail in the other direction.
This isn’t to say he’s through; he’s not. Indeed, unless one candidate sweeps the early contests — which, at this point, seems unlikely — Giuliani’s emphasis on Florida and February 5 may actually pay dividends.
But it has to be discouraging for the campaign. They have a candidate who’s popularity goes down the more people see him.