Posted on 01/30/2008 5:59:35 AM PST by Liz
Giuliani's run for the White House ended in Florida.......He had bet the rent n the Sunshine State - and lost...he's expected to withdraw - and endorse McCain. Experts will be analyzing the Giuliani campaign in hopes of figuring out just why Rudy - who entered the race enjoying a wide lead over Republican and Democratic challengers - nose-dived so quickly. Many will second-guess his strategy of skipping early contests. Giuliani failed to contest Iowa, NH, Michigan and SC - and, by yesterday, the parade had passed him by. It's also not clear why he stayed stuck on the 9/11 theme........by accident or design, he failed to make his own case early on - and when he finally tried, nobody was listening.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The flop heard round the world. One pundit said Rooty's failure in Fla was due to the worst-run campaign in two millenia.
The onetime national frontrunner's demise was also attributed to his frenetic campaigning---61 days straight in Fla. The more voters saw of him, the more the heard, the more they dislked him.
Conservatives writing his epitaph insist Giuliani's baffle-gab to dupe the electorate flopped miserably. The cross-dressing abortion worshipper and gun-grabber's launched a whacked-out bizarre strategy of "saving himself for the big states."
Giuliani duped most everyone, saying he "wasn't competing" in early primaries/caucses. Baloney. He was humiliated in Florida; his presidential ambitions are effectively over.
Up until the bitter end, Giuliani was duping the voters. He calculatedly announced his top staffers were working gratis---b/c Giuliani wanted voters to think he managed to spend all his campaign money without having actually competed in any of the early primary/caucus states.
Bigtime BS. The truth is that Rudy spent all his money because he HAS competed in all those states, and he lost dismally. The number of times Rooty went to New Hampshire to campaign was second only to Romney.
Rudy just CLAIMS he hasn't been competing because the results show he is a bigtime loser, a political reject, trounced by primary/caucus voters.
Giuliani practically lived in Florida to get his campaign launched---he frantically campaigned 61 days straight---and he could not even get transplanted New Yorkers in Fla to rally behind him.
Giuliani's flim-flam game made him lose whatever credibility he had left (not much).
The number of times Rooty went to New Hampshire to campaign was second only to Romney.
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Good point! That said, Fred Barnes made a point on FOX last night that rang true. He said this was an election where tactics made a huge difference in the outcome. Fred’s coming in a bit too late — Guilianni not fighting hard enough in the early primaries or defining himself other than through 9/11 — each of them blew their big opportunities and it changed the outcome of the race. Matthews made a good point as well — with Guilianni he ran past the expiration date on the 9/11 event. 7 years was just too long for it to be enough for him to win the election. He compared Guilianni to MacArthur, who Matthews said could easily have won the Presidency the year he was fired by Truman, but a few years later when the primaries came around the nation was looking for a less hawkish President like Eisenhower. Timing.
“skipping the early contests entirely in favor of Florida”
Biggest lie of 07 and 08 so far. He lost New Hampshire and the early states but he did run and was on the ballot and, spent millions.
Sad thing about the timing issue — is that this should have been Duncan Hunter’s year given the issues — trade and amnesty — that came up during the campaign. Wish conservatives were “netroots” active enough to give the longshots a fighting chance.
Heheh——love, love, love it.
Rudy started flopping in the polls after he got out of the hospital in Iowa & just stopped trying to win. I believe a deal was made at that time - Rudy became a stalking horse for McCain.
No one could run that bad of a campaign if they were trying even just a little bit - HE LOST ON PURPOSE.
The fix is in.
I was surprised at how much money the Giuliani campaign had raised—he was right up there with Romney. For all that money, I didn’t see much of an effort.
Was the flim-flam really a carefully thought out plan to rope-a-dope some conservatives into buying in to him with the idea all along to have Crist and Martinez make an election eve endorsement of McCain followed by a post election Rudy endorsement.
Politics is dirty, almost to the point of being evil, and a lot of campaigns depend on the fact most citizens are basicly honest and think they won’t be bamboozled by a politician who turns out to be dishonest. Imagine that.
My wife and I fretted over our primary vote for several days and in the end felt it would wrong to abandon Rudy in the end. We voted for him and then he drops out and endorses McCain. There’s the flim-flam!
I was a Guiliani supporter. I was planning on voting for him in next week’s caucuses in Minnesota.
However, I will not take his advice and support McCain...if that’s really what he’s planning on doing.
I will support Mitt Romney.
We neeed to check the stats on this but I would wager Rudy's spending $50 million for one delegate may be an all-time record.
Look, it’s just plain dumb to campaign for office 24/7, spend millions, and NOT plan to win.
Yours is an interesting theory, however, I do think Rooty’s subliminal game was to stop Romney.
I will support Mitt Romney to the end.
I will not vote for John McCain, even if the Dims are running a Che Guevara teeshirt.
All articles I have read say that in the last few weeks - Rudy just wasn’t in the room when he was campaigning. I’ve read plenty about how he would talk to half-filled rooms & then leave immediately afterward without even taking questions. How he wouldn’t go into the crowds to shake hands & just went straight to his limo and left afterward.
This is not the Rudy we saw early in the campaign. Something happened & he stopped trying to win. Even FOX stopped shilling for him. Rudy spent the last month as a stalking horse for McCain.
I had no idea McCain had a trophy wife. He has only been picture with his mother. I saw her in the LaTimes this morning but, I think I dated her about 20 years ago. What is the trophy wifes story?
Don't look now, but they are. The Repubs are right there next to them.
Okay ... now you can look. ;)
IMO, he already had a deal with Romney a while back but had to go through the motions in Florida because he had trumpeted a long time ago that the Sunshine State would be his big push and that he was putting all his oranges in that basket.
His internal polling evidently showed a while back that Florida would be a disaster and so would some ensuing primaries. So the alliance with McQueasy was quickly forged and Guiliani played out the game in Florida under false premises.
As for his spending millions even as he was contemplating dropping out, remember, politicians never spend their own money......from donors during a campaign, and from taxpayers once they're elected.....so why should he have any qualms?
This is hardball, do-anything-to-win politics being played out by this duo before a largely unsophisticated electorate.
Leni
Did RG even want to be president? Or was it just a sham for some other purpose?
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