The Strong Man Blues

The Heretik
January 18th, 2008

Where is Rudy now? September Eleventh, September Eleventh ain’t what it used to be.

The collapse of the Giuliani myth is one of the most fascinating storylines of the season so far. The mayor’s gamble that the most traumatic national event of our time would also be the most political event of our time seems to have been a bad bet. George W. Bush was the 9/11 candidate and there may be no more to say about it at this point. Despite Giuliani’s decision not to contest Michigan, his three percent performance there was more than just a disappointing footnote: It’s a big hint. In any successful Giuliani scenario, Michigan was crucial. If the economically strapped progeny of the 1980s Reagan Democrats can’t grasp the charms of tough-talking, tax-cutting Rudy Giuliani, no one will.

By the time the Florida primary comes around, will Rudy Giuliani still be around? ...

( read more )

© 2008 The Heretik

Giuliani's Immigration Problem

Much as he hates to admit it, Rudy loved (most of) those huddled masses

Wayne Barrett
Village Voice
January 15th, 2008

With second-tier finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire ending his year-long frontrunner status, America's Mayor is looking more and more like America's Loser. But polls in Florida and the breakthrough states of Super Tuesday, as well as the split decision in the first two Republican primaries, give Rudy Giuliani a still-plausible chance on the road to this summer's convention. Hope, as Barack Obama would put it, is his only option.

Giuliani was in Florida the night of his Iowa and New Hampshire losses, and that is where he will make his stand on January 29, after laying off in Michigan, Nevada, and even South Carolina. He calls it a "big-state" strategy, though it looks more and more like merely a recognition of his own dismal immediate prospects. If he is staking his candidacy on Florida, however, he will have to come to grips with an issue foremost on Republican voters' minds there: immigration. But his campaign is on a collision course between that wedge issue —exploited the way gay marriage was in 2004—and Giuliani's own immigration résumé.

Giuliani is not just a former New York mayor who has to answer to the GOP for policies that were benevolent to immigrants. Nearly three decades ago, when he was the third most powerful person in Ronald Reagan's Justice Department, he was also its point man on immigration. In the post of associate attorney general, as well as when he was U.S. Attorney in Manhattan in the late '80s and mayor in the '90s, he established a pro-immigrant record that goes far beyond his already-documented support of health care and other benefits for illegals. And if that doesn't play well with Florida primary voters, neither will the time he took a tough stance on immigrants and wound up being rebuked by federal judges—in part for his treatment of Cuban refugees.

The exploitation of immigration as a campaign issue has already shaped the presidential fortunes of three present or onetime frontrunners: John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Giuliani. McCain's early national lead disappeared with his prominent link to a Bush-backed immigration bill considered by every other GOP presidential hopeful, including Giuliani, to be too welcoming. Clinton's slide began when she tried to take both positions on the question of drivers' licenses for illegals in a primary debate. Giuliani all but abandoned Iowa, meanwhile, where polls indicated that immigration was the highest concern for Republican voters, and where his so-called "sanctuary city" record as mayor was near the top of the list of shifting policy positions that hurt him. Giuliani's desperate declaration in December that, as mayor, he wanted to deport all 400,000 of the city's undocumented immigrants but found himself "stuck" with them—a slight variation on his 1994 observation that undocumented immigrants were the kind of people "we want in this city"—became one of the galling contrasts that crippled him in Iowa and diminished his national numbers. ... ( read more )

Copyright © 2008 Village Voice LLC

Even at Home, Backers Worry About Giuliani

SAM ROBERTS
The New York Times
January 17, 2008

For months, the Republican establishment in New York and New Jersey marched nearly in lock step behind Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former hometown mayor they were confident would become their party’s nominee for president.

But as Mr. Giuliani has plummeted from first to fourth — or worse — in some national polls, as he finished near the bottom of the pack in the nation’s earliest primaries, and as his lead evaporated even in Florida, the state on which he has gambled the most time and money, those Republican leaders are verging toward a grim new consensus:

If Mr. Giuliani loses in the Florida primary on Jan. 29, they say, he may even have trouble defeating the rivals who are encroaching on his own backyard.

“It’s pretty certain that he has to win Florida,” said Guy V. Molinari, the former Staten Island borough president, who is co-chairman of Mr. Giuliani’s campaign in New York.

Those supporters say they are confident that if Mr. Giuliani carries Florida or runs a very close second, he will remain the odds-on favorite to claim virtually all of the delegates from the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut primaries on Feb. 5, when Republicans in 22 states vote.

But if Mr. Giuliani is relegated to a distant second or worse in Florida, even some of his supporters acknowledge that New York’s primary one week later would most likely be up for grabs, with Senator John McCain of Arizona and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts being Mr. Giuliani’s strongest rivals. Like Mr. Giuliani, both are fielding full delegate slates in all 29 of the state’s Congressional districts. .... ( read more )

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Giuliani tries for Hail Mary in Florida

SARA KUGLER
Associated Press Writer
CQ
January 17, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) --

Republican Rudy Giuliani challenged political convention in shrugging off early primaries while staking his presidential candidacy on delegate-rich, later-voting states, a strategy that could be a colossal failure or a masterful calculation.

The former New York mayor is suffering from money woes and hasn't won a single primary. Other Republicans have been gobbling up delegates and national media attention, but Giuliani has won one key bet he placed long ago: Even after the first few contests, there would no clear front-runner in the GOP field.

As his opponents spent time, money and energy battling in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and beyond, Giuliani shifted his resources to Florida, where he hopes its winner-take-all Jan. 29 primary will hand him 57 delegates and catapult him overnight to the top of the race for the nomination. He has no delegates so far. ... ( read more )

CQ © 2007 All Rights Reserved Congressional Quarterly Inc.

Despite Open Field, Giuliani Stumbling In Florida

Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
January 16, 2008

Lost amid the celebration over Mitt Romney's win in the Michigan primary on Tuesday night was an equally noteworthy electoral result. Rudy Giuliani, the one-time frontrunner for the Republican nomination, placed sixth in the state. The three percent of the vote he received was just one point higher than that cast for "uncommitted." Even more remarkable, this was the second time in three primary elections that the former New York City mayor ended up behind five of his GOP competitors -- including Ron Paul.

Despite spending an estimated $40 million in his pursuit of the White House, Giuliani has nary a primary victory to show. His political prospects have dimmed sharply in the past few weeks even as the Republican election has remained unpredictably wide-open. Indeed, the fact that Giuliani still stands a chance of grabbing the nomination - if he could pull off a victory in the upcoming Florida election - is more a credit to the weakness of the GOP, observers say, than to Giuliani's particular strengths.

"His strategy, to be blunt, was a stupid strategy and sometimes stupid things work," said Larry Sabato a professor of political science at the University of Virginia. "If he wins Florida he will get a slingshot and everyone will call them brilliant, but in retrospect it was incredibly stupid of Giuliani not to pick one of the primaries. He could have easily have filled the slot that McCain filled in New Hampshire." ... ( read more )

Copyright © 2008 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

Giuliani’s Lead Shrinks in Florida, Poll Shows

Michael Cooper
The New York Times Politics Blog
January 14, 2008,

NAPLES, Fla. — The campaign’s signs say “Florida is Rudy Country.’’ But despite Rudolph W. Giuliani’s heavy advertising effort here, and the fact that he has the state almost to himself while his rivals duke it out in colder climes, a poll released Monday shows that his lead in Florida has slipped, and the state is now very much up for grabs.

The poll, by Quinnipiac University, showed Senator John McCain, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee all within the margin of sampling error. And it found that even though Mr. Giuliani now has the airwaves here to himself, Mr. McCain has gained nine percentage points since the last Qunnipiac survey was taken, between Dec. 12 and Dec. 18, while Mr. Giuliani lost eight percentage points.

The poll, which has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points, showed Mr. McCain with the support of 22 percent of likely primary voters, Mr. Giuliani at 20 percent, and Mr. Huckabee and Mr. Romney with 19. The survey polled 419 likely Republican primary voters from Jan. 9 through Jan. 13. ... ( read more )


Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Rudy Giuliani campaign pleas for money as coffers are drying up in Florida

DAVID SALTONSTALL

DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT

Sunday, January 13th 2008

BRADENTON, Fla. - While Team Rudy has vehemently denied that its decision to withhold paychecks from top staffers was a sign of financial desperation, the campaign - citing the new pay cuts - fired off an anxious plea for more donor cash Saturday.

"I know I have asked you many times to help Rudy over the past year, but I am asking you to dig a little deeper," Giuliani campaign manager Michael DuHaime wrote in a fund-raising e-mail obtained by the Daily News. "Everyone on the campaign is doing all we can to conserve resources to help Rudy get elected. Many staffers, including me, have volunteered to give up our paychecks this month, and we are running a very lean operation in order to devote everything we can to elect Rudy the next President."

"Will you help us one more time?" DuHaime pleaded.

The slightly frantic tone of the solicitation is in stark contrast to the calm assurances Giuliani and others tried to present Friday when asked about the pay cuts, which staffers insisted are voluntary and intended to give Giuliani an extra pot of money in the homestretch.

Aides have said that Giuliani had $7 million in the bank at the end of December - likely more than GOP rivals John McCain and Mike Huckabee - but the former mayor is also known to be spending at a fast clip here in Florida. Sources said Giuliani booked at least $700,000 in ads last week alone in Florida, and was on the air in the first week of January as well, suggesting that a good portion of that $7 million may already be gone. ... ( read more )

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