I can’t get enough of this Rudy Giuliani story in the New York Post. He might run for president in 2012! We know because “sources,” a “different source,” “some insiders,” “a source,” and “a source” say so.
Richard Brookhiser, who is not anonymous, has thoughts.
Political figures are not static; every episode adds to their resumes. Giuliani’s campaign in the last cycle showed that he is unsuited for national politics, hence for national leadership. His race was feckless, disorganized, and cowardly.
Yep. We can argue that Giuliani’s social stances made him unelectable, but they were not as much of a factor in his sputter-out than his lazy campaign. I don’t say this just because I wrote a long profile of the candidate and didn’t get access, or that I know journalists who were promised some interview time and got either nothing or a segment of a newsless multi-reporter interview. He was distracted in most debates (overturning Roe “would be okay,” remember?), eschewed free-flowing town halls for extremely managed events, and managed to alienate voters the more he showed up in their states. He ran a frontrunner campaign when his support was paper-thin, and he did really the bare minimum to appease skeptics – remember the phone call he took during his NRA speech?
On paper, Giuliani would be better suited to the 2012 race than 2008, because the way things look you’ll have a GOP electorate that cares more about economics than social issues. But you’d forget that Giuliani went out of his way to alienate supporters of the now-lionized Ron Paul, and that, well, he’s become a lazy campaigner.
