The Person Who Never Was
From the Times post-mortem on the Giuliani campaign: For Giuliani, a Dizzying Free-Fall
A curious new vulnerability also arose. As mayor, Mr. Giuliani took much joy in crawling through the weeds of policy debate, flashing his issue mastery. But as a presidential candidate, he as often seemed ill at ease.
Mr. Giuliani once embraced gun control, gay rights and abortion rights; he knew that all of these issues would be a tough sell to Republicans. While he never shifted positions as sharply as Mr. Romney — who renounced his former support of abortion and gay rights — he as often occupied a muddled middle ground that pleased no one.
This became most evident in the first Republican debate. Asked about repealing Roe v. Wade, he was equivocal. “It would be O.K. to repeal,” he said. “Or it would be O.K. also if a strict constructionist judge viewed it as precedent, and I think a judge has to make that decision.”
Later, he said that the decision on abortion should be left to women — but that he would appoint strict constructionist judges of the type who had favored overturning Roe v. Wade.
A strong, decisive leader who pushed a mobbed-up grifter like Kerik for the head of homeland security; the forceful protector against terrorism who sited his command center in an obvious target zone which was instantly decapitated; “America’s Mayor” — but only as proclaimed by the propagandists at FoxNoise; the champion of a women’s Constitutional right to choose who would appoint a hardline ideologue who would abolish that right at the first opportunity. The front-runner without a lead:
Only weeks ago, Mr. DuHaime spoke in a call about the former mayor’s strong lead in those states. “Some of these leads are momentum-proof at this point,” he said.
Mr. Giuliani now trails or is at best tied in polls in all of those states. And soon after that phone call, reporters received a memorable e-mail rebuttal from Mr. Romney’s spokesman, Kevin Madden.
“Mayor Giuliani’s momentum-proof national polling lead, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny all walk into a bar,” it began. “You’re right. None of them exist.”
Rudy Giuliani, the presidential candidate, didn’t really exist either.
It was always a fake, a cardboard cut-out.
