Giuliani Expected to Drop Out of '08 Race After Florida

Posted by Howie Klein, Down With Tyranny! at 10:36 AM on January 29, 2008.

UPDATE

Giuliani is dropping out after his expected landslide loss in Florida today. He'll finally be able to go back to doing drag shows and trading on 9/11 to make himself richer.

In a meeting in the back of his chartered plane en route to St. Petersburg, Fla., a short while ago, the onetime, longtime GOP front-runner told a small group of reporters, including the [L.A.] Times' Louise Roug: "The winner of Florida will win the nomination."

...So far, he's yet to finish first anywhere and ended up behind Rep. Ron Paul in Iowa and Nevada.

Every poll bears out the conventional wisdom that although he may well beat Ron Paul in Florida, he's not coming in first or even second and it will be a tough battle to even win third place. Earlier today his campaign chairman said it's pretty much all over for Giuliani, a victim of his own elitist strategy, which failed dismally.

...[I]n an unusually candid assessment, [Pat Oxford] the Giuliani strategist did not rule out the possibility that a distant third or fourth-place finish could force the former New York mayor to reassess whether to abandon his presidential bid before Super Tuesday on Feb. 5.

..."The question is whether he has any momentum coming out of Florida," Mr. Oxford said in an interview. "If he is second or first, he certainly has momentum. But if he finishes third, it's going to be hard to get momentum out of it."

Just as well for ole Rudy; this race is getting really vicious and McCain will do anything to win what he is certain he is entitled to. His last few days of relentlessly attacking Willard are beyond what any Republicans are used to inside their own party. They usually save this kind of stuff for Democrats:

Mr. Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, began attacking at dawn, accusing Mr. McCain of allying himself with liberal Democrats in the Senate and betraying conservative principles on legislation involving immigration, the environment and campaign finance.

"If you want that kind of a liberal Democratic course as president, then you can vote for him," Mr. Romney said at a Texaco gas station in West Palm Beach at 6:30 a.m. "But those three pieces of legislation, those aren't conservative. Those aren't Republican."

Mr. McCain volleyed back by describing Mr. Romney as a serial flip-flopper who had taken multiple positions on a variety of issues, including gay rights, global warming and immigration. "People, just look at his record as governor," Mr. McCain said at a shipyard in Jacksonville. "He has been entirely consistent. He has consistently taken two sides of every major issue, sometimes more than two."

*****

No one could've predicted:

Arizona Sen. John McCain's lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is growing wider as the Republican campaign ends and Election Day dawns, the results of a new Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby telephone two-day tracking poll shows. McCain now has 35% support in Florida and stands four points ahead of Romney. The poll, which surveyed 941 likely Republican voters in Florida on Jan. 27-28, 2008, carries a margin for error of +/-3.3 percentage points.

...

In what is shaping up as a battle for third place, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee are tied at 13% support each and battling for the advantage. Giuliani had sunk much time and campaign treasury into his Florida campaign, to little effect, the survey shows. Months ago, Giuliani led in Florida by a wide margin.

Sigh. I guess Pat Robertson's endorsement wasn't quite the game changer Rudy had hoped.

Sorry, Frumpy.

Tagged as: republicans, mccain, florida, giuliani, romney

Howie Klein is the creator of the blog Down With Tyranny!