What do you do when a historic storm leaves one of your highest-profile campaign surrogates on the political sidelines—and singing the praises of your rival—only days before Election Day? Find a new attack dog, and quickly.
Mitt Romney appears to have done just that in the wake of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s Sandy-induced friendship with President Obama. The replacement? Rudy Giuliani, who has wasted little time taking to the stump and going after the president for the very thing he’s being lauded by Christie for.
Here was the former New York City mayor speaking to reporters in Florida over the weekend (via ABC affiliate WPBF in Florida):
“Right now [Obama] is doing a terrible job of disaster relief in my city, but no one is talking about,” said Giuliani. “People don’t have water, they don’t have food, electricity and his FEMA is no where to be found. This is a worse response than Katrina.”
And on Sunday during a Fox News interview with Neil Cavuto:
“I think maybe because there’s an election going on, people don’t want to say that, but I think FEMA has dropped the ball, certainly as big they did with Katrina, maybe bigger because they had more warning here and the situation isn’t as big as Katrina.”
And at an Ohio rally on Saturday, where his criticism was a little more wide-ranging (via the New York Daily News):
“He should resign!” Giuliani thundered. … “He lied. … He has been a disaster. The worst president for our economy in our lifetime. He doesn’t want a second term. He wants a second chance, because he screwed it up the first time.”
Giuliani’s sudden presence on the stump is particularly noteworthy given the relatively small role he’d played in the campaign until the past several days. The one-time GOP hopeful wasn’t even given a major speaking slot at this summer’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla.
