Giuliani Shrugs Off Iowa with 9/11 Reference
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James Joyner | Friday, January 4, 2008 |
Rudy Giuliani isn’t worried about an embarrassing fifth sixth place finish in Iowa with a poor finish in New Hampshire looming — he was there on 9/11, damn it!
He flatlined in Iowa and he’s struggling in New Hampshire, but Rudy Giuliani shook off the early-state blues Thursday as only he can.
“None of this worries me - Sept. 11, there were times I was worried,” Giuliani said.
“We’re sitting in a pretty good position right now. So we’re not worried and not concerned,” he told a news conference here. “Maybe other people acted nervous in a situation like this, but this is not unexpected.”
Pardon me for not swooning.
It’s true, of course, that Giuliani eschewed campaigning in Iowa in favor of a “big state strategy.” So far, that’s not looking so good in the polls but time will tell soon enough. But John McCain and Fred Thompson largely skipped the Hawkeye State, too, and managed respectable totals. Giuliani, meanwhile, barely edged out Duncan Hunter and saw his vote trebled by Ron Paul.
But, please, it’s simply unseemly to keep invoking the 9/11 attacks for even the most trivial matters.
As Steven Taylor observes, “Giuliani is starting to sound like a senile old war veterans who can only talk about the day he had to jump out of flaming bomber while Japanese Zeros tried to shoot him from the sky.” Of course, grandpa at least had to undertake personal risk for that story; Giuliani just walked around in a suit.
Taylor and Sully employ the obvious Joe Biden reference. Biden might be out of the race much sooner than the target of his barb but it remains the best line of the campaign to date.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia.
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But, please, it’s simply unseemly to keep invoking the 9/11 attacks for even the most trivial matters.
What else does the Rude-Monster have to invoke?
The particularly grating part is that he didn't do a very good job during the attacks (or especially before hand) at all.
It's one thing to boast in an unseemly manner about a triumph, but boasting in an unseemly manner about your greatest blunder, which cost other people their lives, is really sickening.
"Rudy Giuliani isn’t worried about an embarrassing fifth place finish in Iowa"
Really???? How about a sixth place finish? He finished 6th...not 5th.
Huckabee
Romney
Thompson
McCain
Paul
Guiliani
Really???? How about a sixth place finish? He finished 6th...not 5th.
Ron Paul doesn't count.
Good one, Michael.
Of course, I'd think anyone who has nearly triple his numbers (11598 vs 4013) should count :-)
My wife's mother worked at 2 WTC. Rudy's a fraud.
The Giuliani campaign actually put some effort into Iowa even though they acted like it didn't matter. Then they could point back at results as being better than expected. With this showing and a ways until Florida, it will be too late.
The only thing that surprises me about the sealed fate of the Giuliani campaign is that it will have ended in a slow fizzle rather than some spectacular collapse.
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