Politico.com: Rudy In or Out?

Interesting piece...could it even be possible that Giuliani will not run?

Failed 2000 N.Y. Campaign Casts Shadow Over Giuliani's 2008 Ambition

By: Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith January 25, 2007 05:21 AM EST

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is finally scrambling to beat back a crippling perception that his bid for president isn't quite serious. But even as he begins to hire aides and consultants, many of his New York supporters and critics, as well as neutral observers, see a repeat of his half-hearted, unfinished 2000 campaign for Senate.

"At this moment in history I do not believe he's running for president; I just don't believe it," said Mike Long, chairman of the Conservative Party of New York State. "I don't know of anyone who's gotten a call saying, 'I'm running, I need you to get behind me,' same as happened before."

"I'm having a real hard time believing the guy is taking it seriously," said a former Guiliani aide, who said that he would love to see him become president. "In 2000 there was this feeling that he didn't have to play by all the rules that little people have to play by, and I see that even more strongly now."

The question for this year's Republican primary is whether voters can expect the Giuliani of his first winning campaign in 1993 -- a studious, disciplined, hard-working candidate -- or the indecisive, disorganized, reluctant candidate of 2000, carried by spectacular public polling and national Republican hopes toward a confrontation with Hillary Rodham Clinton until he flamed out in May.

To many in New York, it's starting to look like 2000 all over again with Giuliani drawing the biggest headlines of late when an aide lost possession of a binder containing detailed fund-raising plans and worries that his personal and business life could scuttle his campaign; that 140-page dossier, first published in the New York Daily News, is available online today at Politico.com.

His aides declined to make him available for comment.

Giuliani's early apparent weaknesses -- lack of veteran Republican aides, organization and money -- are hardly fatal. However, they do have a domino effect affecting his ability to attract seasoned staff workers and recruit national donors, and that exacerbates the skepticism that he is serious.

"I doubt his ability to actually go through with it to the end," said Republican strategist Chris LaCivita, who is not working for any of the presidential hopefuls. "Here we are, it's the 17th of January, we've got straw polls around the corner, and they don't have a media consultant or a pollster yet? That's a tell-tale sign."

In 2000, Giuliani allowed his messy personal life -- a public separation, a public girlfriend -- to spill into the headlines. He dropped out of the race after being diagnosed with prostate cancer, but many people around him saw the illness as just one of many factors ending the campaign.This year, it's his sprawling, lucrative private business that has consumed his attention and produced unflattering stories, while his rivals charm their way through the local potentates of the early presidential primary states.

"He makes millions ... because he is revered among a large section of America due to what he did on 9/11," said one neutral GOP consultant. "Why give that up and go into a national political campaign to have all your dirty laundry aired and be gutted like a fish? Then how many companies want to affiliate with that?"

His businesses include a law firm, a security consultancy, a lucrative motivational speaking practice and an investment bank that he's planning to sell. But his political operation is thin. Giuliani has no employees who have worked in the senior ranks of a presidential campaign, though he tried and failed to hire former GOP chairman Ken Mehlman, Republican sources said.

He has hardly made a dent in the early primary states and is badly lagging behind Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in doing the critical spadework of reaching out to the key activists and operatives needed to win in places like Spartanburg County, South Carolina.

"He hasn't called," said Rick Beltram, GOP chairman of the upstate county that is a must-win for any Republican primary hopeful. By contrast, Beltram -- who has not endorsed in the race -- said he and Romney are on a first-name basis and that Romney and McCain have been to the county multiple times in recent years.

That failure to build a national organization echoes 2000, in which Giuliani paid little attention to Upstate New York and ditched appearances in Rochester and Buffalo for a Yankees game. "He couldn't put together a statewide campaign in New York," scoffed on Democratic strategist active in the 2000 race. "Why would anyone think he could do so in the entire country?"

Despite the prevalence of the worries in Giuliani's own camp, a senior aide to the former mayor blamed the chatter in part on folks from other campaigns.

In early January, Giuliani began to hire staff and to push back publicly against the notion that he's not running a serious campaign, announcing with much fanfare the hiring of three young Republican staffers and a prominent Iowa Republican, former representative Jim Nussle, with promises of more personnel moves on the way.

"By early to mid-February, you'll see 20 significant hires in terms of finance, political and communications," the aide said. "And you're going to see some ramping up in Iowa."

With the beginning of a New Hampshire operation in place, he said Giuliani would add a regional political director early next month with Iowa experience.

In South Carolina, Giuliani plans to announce that Karen Floyd, a public relations consultant who lost a bid last year for state office, has joined to help raise money and navigate Palmetto State politics.

For national fund-raising, he's also hired Benedetti & Farris, based in Richmond, Va. According to a recent e-mail obtained by The Politico that the firm sent to an undisclosed list of potential donors, the campaign is "currently in the process of planning a few D.C. events in the Mayor's honor." Indeed, with the help of a group of regional finance chairs to be named, there will be a series of fund-raisers in the weeks and months ahead culminating in a major event in New York City in March, the aide said.

"The first real measuring stick is the first filing deadline," the aide said in reference to the campaign finance period that ends March 31. The infamous lost dossier put Giuliani's goal for that period at $25 million to $30 million.

Despite the hires, some of Giuliani's supporters are not convinced.

"There are two campaigns: the internal campaign of Rudy's core team and the external campaign of the people he's hiring for the Potemkin village in order to have the perception of a viable campaign," said one Giuliani loyalist. The decision has yet to be made, this person said, and when it is, it will take place "between Rudy and a few people in a room at one o'clock in the morning."

Even the doubters, though, acknowledge a key difference between this year and 2000. After Giuliani dropped out on May 19 of that year, the New York Post ran the definitive analysis of the race under the headline: "Bottom line: He didn't really want the job."

It's a conclusion shared by Fred Siegel, the author of a recent study of Giuliani's mayoralty called "the Prince of the City."

"He never wanted to be senator," said Siegel, who said he thinks Giuliani is studying policy and laying plans for a serious, if unconventional, presidential campaign. "He wants the job. That's the first difference."

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