Rudy Giuliani Apparently Still Thinks Anyone Wants Him To Be President

Despite running one of the biggest failures in American political history, Rudy Giuliani says he could be talked into running for President again:

Rudy Giuliani called for a return to American exceptionalism Friday, telling a group of GOP lawyers gathered in the nation’s capital that Ronald Reagan fundamentally changed how Americans felt about themselves.

Before Reagan was elected, Giuliani said, much had been written about America’s decline and how it was a country of “limited possibilities” that had run its course.

“Sounds familiar, right? There are people who believe that today in America. In fact, some of them are running America,” Giuliani said in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association, where he appeared to received the group’s highest honor, the Ed Meese Award.

“The idea that we’re either no better than anyone else, we’re just another country with our set of problems or our set of assets, or maybe we’re not even as good as others. Ronald Reagan found that to be totally wrong, not a correct view of this country and he changed in a very short period of times how we felt about ourselves.”

“That’s the most important thing a leader does,” he added.

(…)

Giuliani took only one question following his half-hour speech. Asked whether he had decided to launch a 2012 White House bid, he said “not yet,” but that it’s a possibility.

“I will sure think about it. … It’s too early and I want to see how it all develops,” he answered. “My major goal is to elect a Republican in 2012. If it turns out that I’m the best one to do that, I can probably be talked into doing it or convince myself to do it,” he said.

“If I thought somebody else had a better chance of doing it, I would be a very enthusiastic supporter of somebody else,” he added.

Rudy, in your case, anybody has a better chance.

 

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, US Politics, ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Tano says:

    the group’s highest honor, the Ed Meese Award.

    this is just so hilarious….

  2. TG Chicago says:

    Before Reagan was elected, Giuliani said, much had been written about America’s decline and how it was a country of “limited possibilities” that had run its course.

    “Sounds familiar, right? There are people who believe that today in America. In fact, some of them are running America,” Giuliani said

    So Doug, do you still think that the killing of bin Laden will give Obama an 18-month pass on being called “weak” and “unAmerican”? Giuliani didn’t even wait a week!

    It won’t be long before others follow suit. It’s what the GOP base wants to hear, so the law of supply and demand dictates that they will get it.

  3. TG,

    Among the voters who will actually decide the election? Yes

  4. tom p says:

    the group’s highest honor, the Ed Meese Award.
    Tano, you can’t make this sh*t up.

  5. Southern Hoosier says:

    In order to return to American exceptionalism we need to stop our decline toward being a 3rd world country. We need to deport 10-15 million illegal immigrants and repeal the 1965 Immigration Act.

  6. An Interested Party says:

    In order to return to American exceptionalism we need to stop our decline toward being a 3rd world country.

    As tom p was writing about sh*t…

  7. Southern Hoosier says:

    An Interested Party says: Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 11:26

    In order to return to American exceptionalism we need to stop our decline toward being a 3rd world country.

    As tom p was writing about sh*t…

    So you think we need almost a million illegal and almost a million legal immigrants coming into this country each year? Do you realize that we will have close to 1/2 billion population by mid century? I guess you support open borders and Bush’s amnesty program.

  8. Tano says:

    Do you realize that we will have close to 1/2 billion population by mid century?

    So what? You think that the road back to “exceptionalism” lies in the direction of being a mid-sized power?

    America has been distinctive for two main reasons – we devised a political system that, though having many profound problems, has proven to be the best framework for striking the balance between liberty and democracy – and secondly, we are, unlike any other country, essentially an abstraction of the rest of the world. Our historically native population is very small – the majority of the country are immigrants, or within three generations of immigration, and we have immigrants from every other place on the planet..

    The first reason – our political and economic system – is not something can remain exclusively our advantage. To the extent that our system works to provide prosperity, security and happiness, it can be and will be copied by others. And, of course, our system is flexible enough to learn from successes elsewhere.

    But the second issue – the nature of our population as being incredibly heterogeneous, incredibly diverse- made up of, to some extent, a sampling of the ambitious populations of the rest of the world – this is the thing which is truly unique about America, and will always be the source of our exceptionalism.

    And thats what you want to get rid of !!!

  9. anjin-san says:

    In order to return to American exceptionalism we need to stop our decline toward being a 3rd world country

    Actually, we just need to get back to the difficult and challenging work of, you know, actually being great.

    Most Americans are not up for it at this point in time, they would rather watch reality TV, and occasionally chant “U.S.A., U.S.A”…

  10. Southern Hoosier says:

    Tano says:
    Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 12:43

    Do you realize that we will have close to 1/2 billion population by mid century?

    So what? You think that the road back to “exceptionalism” lies in the direction of being a mid-sized power?

    We are 3rd in population, only to China and India. You want our children and grandchildren to live the way the do in China or India?

    Our historically native population is very small – the majority of the country are immigrants, or within three generations of immigration, and we have immigrants from every other place on the planet..

    Prior to 1965 we took in 100,000 legal immigrants a year and most of them were from Europe. Now we take in almost a million. All 3rd World counties that we we should strive to emulate, right?

    The top twelve emigrant countries in 2006 were Mexico (173,753), People’s Republic of China (87,345), Philippines (74,607), India (61,369), Cuba (45,614), Colombia (43,151), Dominican Republic (38,069), El Salvador (31,783), Vietnam (30,695), Jamaica (24,976), South Korea (24,386), Guatemala (24,146). Other countries comprise an additional 606,370

  11. Southern Hoosier says:

    American exceptionalism refers to the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other nations.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism

  12. TG Chicago says:

    @Hoosier:

    Prior to 1965 we took in 100,000 legal immigrants a year and most of them were from Europe.

    Oops! You let the mask slip.

  13. Southern Hoosier says:

    TG Chicago says:
    Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 15:25

    @Hoosier:

    Prior to 1965 we took in 100,000 legal immigrants a year and most of them were from Europe.

    Oops! You let the mask slip.

    The truth is racist when you don’t like it, right?

  14. TG Chicago says:

    Your point was ostensibly based in the sheer number of immigrants. Yet you felt a need to mention where the immigrants came from.

  15. Southern Hoosier says:

    @TG Chicag
    Tell me this, if you had to leave the US, where would you move to? Haiti? The Ivory Coast, Bangladesh, Yemen, India?

  16. Southern Hoosier says:

    TG Chicago says:
    Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 15:33

    Your point was ostensibly based in the sheer number of immigrants. Yet you felt a need to mention where the immigrants came from.

    That’s right.

  17. TG Chicago says:

    @Doug

    Among the voters who will actually decide the election? Yes

    GOP base voters could decide the election. If the GOP doesn’t get their base to turn out, they will surely lose. It’s what happened to Democrats in 2010. The GOP will certainly use “weak” and “unAmerican” attacks to mobilize their base, and it’s not impossible that it could convince some in the middle as well.

    Again, if something happens like Iran getting a nuke, that will shuffle the deck in a big way. The election is too far away to say that it can’t happen.

  18. Tano says:

    SH,

    Why didn’t you bother to mention the sentence at the end of the first paragraph, as well as at the beginning, at the link you provided?

    “The term “American exceptionalism” itself was first used by members of the American Communist Party in the 1920s, in reference to their belief that “thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions, America might for a long while avoid the crisis that must eventually befall every capitalist society”

    LOL

  19. Southern Hoosier says:

    Tano says:
    Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 16:33

    SH,

    Why didn’t you bother to mention the sentence at the end of the first paragraph, as well as at the beginning, at the link you provided?

    “The term “American exceptionalism” itself was first used by members of the American Communist Party in the 1920s, in reference to their belief that “thanks to its natural resources, industrial capacity, and absence of rigid class distinctions, America might for a long while avoid the crisis that must eventually befall every capitalist society”

    LOL

    And they were right.Even the Communist recognized the exceptionalism of America. Communism has fallen and were still here. I could have pasted the whole article.

  20. An Interested Party says:

    Yes, America will stay exceptional, as long as we don’t take in immigrants from non-European countries…I’m sure the Communists would have recognized that too…

  21. Southern Hoosier says:

    An Interested Party says: Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 18:52

    Yes, America will stay exceptional, as long as we don’t take in immigrants from non-European countries…I’m sure the Communists would have recognized that too…

    It was the European immigrants coming into our county during The Golden Age of Immigration that fueled American exceptionalism and make our countries great. The Golden Age of Immigration ended in 1965.

  22. Southern Hoosier says:
  23. Matt says:

    It was the European immigrants coming into our county during The Golden Age of Immigration that fueled American exceptionalism and make our countries great. The Golden Age of Immigration ended in 1965.

    Wow… Tell that too the number of largely slave workers (both African and later Asian — who were paid at slave rates) that built a significant amount of the infrastructure that allowed the country to be great…