The Giuliani Papers

Giuliani Getting Scared About Sinking Prospects

New York magazine is quoting USA Today which is saying:

Instead of emulating former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope strategy and letting his opponents tire themselves out in contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, the former New York mayor has had to start swinging hard in those states.

That's because Giuliani is behind in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, polls show. So while Ali's strategy enabled him to unseat heavyweight champ George Foreman in 1974, it won't help Giuliani win next year's Republican presidential nomination.

Giuliani Sinking Locally and Nationally

Steve Benen summarizes Giuliani's recent declines in the early primary states and nationally. Let's hope these signs prove predictive:

Among conservatives, over the last month, Giuliani’s support has gone from 28% to 19%. Among those closely following the presidential race, it’s dropped from 32% to 12%. Among independents, it was 38%, and now it’s 21%. Among men, Giuliani has gone from 37% in November to 23% in December.

Giuliani is tanking in the early contests, too.

According to the very helpful data compiled by Pollster.com, Giuliani is a distant third in Iowa (and dropping), a distant second in New Hampshire (and dropping), and somewhere between second and fifth in South Carolina.

When Giuliani first started his campaign, a lot of us thought it was only a matter of time before his record caught up with him. I think we’re seeing it unfold that way now.

Giuliani Sinks in More New Polls

The prominent story on Giuliani today is the results of two additional polls that show he has dropped among Republican voters as Thompson and McCain have risen.

The ABC/Washington Post poll says:

The former New York mayor slipped nine percentage points nationally, tumbling from 37 percent in July to 28 percent today.

Though Giuliani rated better with Republicans concerned more about major terrorist attacks, among those less focused on terrorism he is in a dead heat with former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who was the choice of 19 percent of those polled.

A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll also shows:

Rudolph W. Giuliani has been well ahead of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination in nationwide polls, but he is far weaker in the crucial states that will cast early votes in the nominating process next year, according to a new Los Angeles Times/ Bloomberg poll that underscores how unsettled the GOP race remains.

Among Republican voters, Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, trails Mitt Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire, and he lags behind Fred Thompson in South Carolina.

Though others say the results are not as bad as they might seem for Giuliani. Yet.

Giuliani Dropping in New Poll

A poll by CBS News and The New York Times released Monday showed Giuliani's lead among Republicans dropping with the official entrance of Fred Thompson. Giuliani fell by 11 points between August and now in the national poll. CBS said:

After seeing his support among Republican primary voters rise to 38 percent in August, Giuliani was backed by only 27 percent of respondents in the most recent survey, narrowing his lead over Thompson to 5 percentage points after holding a 20-point edge last month.

While Thompson, at 22 percent support, is now a close second to Giuliani, he was not the only Republican to seemingly benefit from Giuliani’s fading numbers. Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was written off by some after months of staff upheaval and disappointing fundraising, saw his support increase 6 points since the last survey to 18 percent.

The poll also shows that Giuliani may be mistaken in thinking that voters believe being a mayor is a qualification for being a president.

Only 48 percent of registered voters believe that being a big-city mayor qualifies one to be president, a sentiment shared equally by Democrats and Republicans.

On the other hand, registered voters overwhelmingly believe that being a senator or governor provides the experience necessary to be president. Romney has been a governor, while all the other top candidates in the race are serving or have served in the Senate.

Yet the Giuliani campaign is increasing emphasis on his mayoral years, calling in any and all former NYC workers who are willing to make statements praising the former mayor. The Daily News reports:

Giuliani's presidential campaign has e-mailed former deputy mayors and commissioners in a bid to round up more boosters for the front-running Giuliani, who has based much of his national campaign on his record as mayor.

In an internal memo obtained by The News, aides invited former City Hall denizens to attend a Sept. 17 meeting in Times Square to discuss videotaping pro-Giuliani segments - and to recruit others to the cause.
"Essentially we need people who can attest to what the city was like before RWG became mayor and what it was like to live during the N.Y.C. renaissance," reads the e-mail.

The authors make clear they won't be too choosy.

"Any surrogate you can think of on any conceivable issue will be of value," they said, adding that useful types might include "other administration officials, community and civic leaders, small business owners, CEOs, current and former elected officials and average New Yorkers."

"Because of the low cost associated with producing them, we can tape an almost endless amount of people," aides added.

Giuliani Loses Ohio and Pennsylvania to Clinton in New Polls

Recent polls in Pennsylvania and Ohio have Hillary beating Rudy in reversals of previous poll results.

A month ago the two were tied in Ohio.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton has made large gains against Giuliani since June. In a head-to-head contest back then, Clinton got 37% and Giuliani 52%. Now, it is nearly reversed with Clinton at 51% and Giuliani at 42%.

Perhaps this is why Rudy's getting rougher in a new fundraising letter, reported in The New York Daily News:

For the first time on the White House trail, Rudy Giuliani yesterday deployed one of his time-tested fund-raising tactics: the specter of an empowered Hillary Clinton.

Relying on the tenor - and the mailing list - of his aborted Senate bid against Clinton in 2000, the Republican Giuliani dispatched a mass mailing warning donors: "If Hillary Clinton or any of her like-minded Democrat followers are elected President, they will take this country in a fundamentally different direction.