All signs point to Rudy Giuliani’s campaign not doing well. I’m very glad for this. He ran his entire campaign on 9/11 and it hasn’t worked. I was afraid that it would.
Why didn’t it work? Have most voters begun to think of Sept 11 as a historical event now? Has the obsession with terrorism diminished as people are looking at the economy and immigration as the main issues in the 2008 campaign?
My take is that most voters have terrorism fatigue. The Bush administration beat that horse to death with their color codes and duct tape alerts. Now, when I think of 9/11, I tend to think more of Patriot act nonsense and TSA hassles.
I think it might be more that his strategy of back loading the primary (not participating in the early races) just isn’t working. As candidates, like McCain, start racking up wins, they get more press and people shift their focus. And he’s had some problems in the scandal department, too.
When held under the Presidential campaign microscope, Giuliani’s flaws become more and more pronounced. His pre-9/11 track record is hit or miss, and this is the first time he’s trying to get elected since then. Given his style, I’m surprised he is not playing up having to quit his senatorial campaign to receive cancer treatments, or maybe he thinks it is a weakness that he couldn’t muscle through the campaign while on chemo.
He hasn’t just been weak; he’s been *amazingly * weak, finishing lower than Ron Paul in all but one primary/caucus. You can say he didn’t campaign, but he still got press — lots more press than Paul. So I’d say people pretty much don’t give a shit about him. It may be the New York Republican curse, too, a la Rockefeller.
I’m 9/11 just not 9/11 sure 9/11 what else 9/11 Guilani 9/11 was running 9/11 on. 9/11
Seriously, when an entire campaign can be summed up as “A noun, a verb, and 9/11” that wouldn’t seem to bode well, especially now that the economy is becoming more and more of an issue.
He ran a terrible campaign. He did not run as himself. He pandered to the Theo-cons and Noe-cons. This was foolish as the Theo-Cons were never going to accept a pro-choice, multi-divorced Liberal Republican that moved in to the apartment of his two gay friends when he was between marriages.
He should have just ran as himself, an abrasive, straight talking New Yorker willing to offend his opponents and tried to build a base from the moderate, liberal and disenfranchised Republicans. He did not. He took some very bad advice in my opinion. Much like Al Gore once took some awful advice and left us in this mess of Bush/Cheney.
He did run a terrible campaign. But to be fair, he did get the short end of the stick on the Nookiegate affair. Turns out the security details for his bit of fluff were properly paid for after all, but he never got those points in the polls back.
I live in Florida, where Guiliani has been running TV ads for what seems like months, and not one that I’ve seen has emphasized 9/11. What he has been running on has been effective governance of NYC, fiscal conservatism, and touting himself as tough on terror.
Not that expect actual facts to change minds, but these are the kinds of ads he’s been running:
There’s the first 11 official Guiliani ads I found. Only one so much as mentions 9/11.
The fact that John Stewart emdlessly repeats something does not actually make it a fact.
Has photo of Rudy in a dust mask. Gee, when was that?
An almost subliminal shot of the wreckage of the WTC buried in an anti-Islamic rant.
Mentions September 11 early and often.
I think the ads were a conscious effort to minimize his endless ranting of 9/11. I think Biden’s comment of a noun, a verb, and 9/11 stung his advisors a bit and that’s why 9/11 isn’t as prominent in the ads. In every early debate, he couldn’t get off the topic. In Florida it only got one passing indirect reference. But after months of running exclusively on 9/11, getting a second dimension now is too little too late.
I don’t disagree with anyone here but I think there is an element of (as they say in pro sports) the other team gets paid to make plays too.
I think Giuliani had some real structural problems for alot of the reasons **What Exit? **mentions a pro-choice, multi-divorced Liberal Republican that moved in to the apartment of his two gay friends when he was between marriages and much more.
To the majority of Republicans those probably aren’t voting issues but to many of the activists voting now they are very important. Giuliani needed to be the sane rational choice for buzzwords conservative security steady government lower taxes - McCain’s re-emergence is what ultimately doomed Rudy - McCain became **the **choice if you aren’t voting Huckabee or Romney. and that doomed Guiliani and that had as much to do with MCCains campaign as Rudy’s
I think he only gave up on New Hampshire after voters showed they weren’t interested. He’d already skipped Iowa and had some time in New Hampshire to himself, but didn’t get anything for his efforts.
ANECDOTE:
I happened to visit Florida for five days about 3 weeks ago. The entire time I was there, I saw only one campaign ad from any candidate, and it was this one:
You can’t tell me that’s not about 9/11 - the blatant fearmongering made me want to puke. And while this is only campaign ad I saw, I happened to see it about 10 times. I didn’t see any of the others you listed once. Make of that what you will.
No idea why that doesn’t work. Try the 5th link down on furt’s list.