SALON

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 2:48 PM UTC

Does Rudy Giuliani know how to take a hint?

He wants us to believe he might jump in the presidential race -- four years after his epically disastrous campaign

By

Topics: 2012 Elections, Rudy Giuliani, War Room,

Does Rudy Giuliani know how to take a hint?Then Republican presidential hopeful, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, speaking at a campaign rally in Clearwater, Fla., Monday, Jan. 28, 2008.

On Sunday night, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., floated a Rudy Giuliani trial balloon, claiming to reporters that the former New York mayor has been quietly lining up donors and is seriously considering another presidential campaign. Byron York of the Washington Examiner, who is well-sourced among Beltway Republicans, reported on the possibility with surprising credulity, noting that Giuliani placed third in the most recent New Hampshire poll.

Polls this early are, as York should know, total hogwash. It’s a contest based on name recognition, long before most voters have started to pay attention. That’s why Giuliani led the Republican field in national polls throughout 2007, with Fred Thompson in second. Both candidates crashed and burned dramatically in the early primaries and were gone before Super Tuesday. There were four main reasons Giuliani’s campaign failed last time, and none of them have been ameliorated since:

His political record is too socially liberal. This is a guy who started his mayoral campaign in 1989 running to Ed Koch’s left and compared himself to liberal lion Fiorello La Guardia (whom he called New York’s greatest mayor). Although he shifted right when David Dinkins got the Democrats’ mayoral nomination, Giuliani remained pro-choice and pro-gay rights: He even once bunked with a gay couple and famously dressed in drag. Giuliani endorsed Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994. He was a New York Republican, not the sort who can play in South Carolina. His stance on abortion — Giuliani gave up on his brief attempt to pretend he is anti-abortion rights when it was revealed that he had donated to Planned Parenthood, the GOP’s new ACORN — would be a major sticking point. Elite national Republicans like King and York don’t actually care about abortion — see the sections in “Game Change” on how McCain advisors had no objection to putting Joe Lieberman on his ticket — but actual Republicans do. That’s why McCain reluctantly concluded that he couldn’t choose Lieberman. A pro-choice Republican nominee would either trigger significant defections from the religious right to a third-party candidate or simply prompt many of those voters to stay home next November.

He wasn’t terribly popular or successful as mayor. National Republicans may not know this, and New York Republicans like Peter King may have conveniently forgotten, but Giuliani’s political career was over before Sept. 11, 2001. His abrasive manner and controversial policies had resulted in lousy approval ratings. He was trailing carpetbagger Hillary Clinton in the 2000 Senate race before he dropped out. His vulnerabilities have never been seriously exploited by an opponent, but don’t think Mitt Romney would hesitate to unload on him in a close race, especially now that we’re four years further past Giuliani’s post 9/11 beatification.

Speaking of vulnerabilities, Giuliani has nasty skeletons in his closet, even by the standards of a Republican politician. He has been twice divorced: His first wife was his second cousin, and he  dumped his second wife for his quirky mistress, Judith Nathan, at a press conference before informing his wife in person. During the last campaign Ben Smith of Politico reported that Giuliani improperly used police escorts to take Nathan to trysts in the Hamptons. To be fair, Giuliani’s pecadillos pale in comparison to those of Bernard Kerik, a Giuliani crony who started as his driver and was ultimately promoted to chief of the NYPD. When Giuliani recommended Kerik to be secretary of Homeland Security after the 2004 election, a bevy of embarrassing revelations ensued, from his affair with publish Judith Regan in apartments near ground zero that were paid for by taxpayers and intended for rescue workers, to accepting favors from contractors with alleged mafia links.

He also has no message. Giuliani events in New Hampshire in 2008 were depressing affairs. Small crowds, silently bored to death by Giuliani droning on about the importance of lowering the corporate income tax and the various taxes he cut as mayor. It seemed that Giuliani figured he had the national security hawk vote lined up and needed to focus on fiscal conservatives (since he surely could not count on social conservatives). But his only line that drew applause was a throwaway at the end when he would mention the need to “stay on offense” against Islamist terrorism.

But that brings us to the point that Giuliani’s one major selling point — that he happened to be mayor of New York on 9/11 — has been surpassed by events since the last election. President Obama just killed Osama bin Laden, so Giuliani can hardly claim that he would be more committed to taking out al-Qaida. The Iraq war, which Giuliani vociferously supported, is viewed by everyone who doesn’t work for Fox News as a failure. Even the war in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular. Meanwhile, the news out of the Middle East is of the Arab Spring, which gives us hope that the region will accommodate itself to modernity and democracy rather than being a fount of anger and frustration looking for a target. Giuliani’s dour and militaristic view of Middle Eastern affairs seems especially out of step with the times.

Mostly, Americans are just worried about the economy, and Giuliani already proved last time that he can’t win the nomination with an economic policy focus. Giuliani is unlikely to run, and if he does, he is virtually certain not to win the nomination. The discussion of a Giuliani candidacy is evidence of nothing so much as the desperation of Republicans who want an alternative to their current uninspiring field. But they should take heart: Michele Bachmann might still run.

More Ben Adler.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 28 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
234 points235 points | 8 comments
vote
New Yorker launches tool by Aaron Swartz to protect leaks: Strongbox, co-created by the persecuted late technologist, is an open-source drop box for leaked documents
169 points170 points | 1 comment
vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
151 points152 points | 41 comments
vote
Obstruction will ruin the GOP: Playing politics and abusing the system can excite the extremes, but it's a recipe for long-term political disaster
51 points52 points | 8 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
29 points30 points | 3 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations