AHC: Have Rudi Giuliani Win The GOP Nomination in 2008

In the leadup to the 2008 presidential cycle, many saw Rudy Giuliani as the nominal front runner for the Republican Party nomination. However, his poor campaign strategy and lack of social conservative bona fides prevented him from gaining much traction when the primaries and caucuses actually began.

So, with a POD no earlier than February 5th, 2007 (when he announced his candidacy), what would it take for Giuliani to become the Republican nominee?

Also, assuming he can win, what does his general election campaign look like against any of the plausible Democratic nominees (Obama, Clinton, Edwards)?
 
Hannity..Limbaugh and the religious right stage a revolt and form a third party for true conservatives not rinos.

I mean really a twice divorced guy from NY who claims to be religious but really isn't with no real experience getting the republican nomination..doubtful
 
To have any chance of getting the nomination, Giuliani has to repudiate his pro-choice stance on abortion and announce he was now pro-life.. Such "conversions"--even if they are purely opportunistic and widely recognized as such--are a minimum requirement for the GOP presidential nomination. I still don't think he would win the nomination, though; by 2008 "vote for me because 9/11" was no longer a winning formula.

As for the general election, with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, any Republican candidate will lose.
 
As for the general election, with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, any Republican candidate will lose.

Okay, but what does the Electoral College map look like in a scenario where, say, Rudy Giuliani/Rick Perry is the Republican ticket, going up against any of the plausible Democratic candidates? Is there reason to believe that Giuliani would have garnered significantly more or fewer votes than McCain, and would he have done significantly better or worse in any particular region of the country?
 
Okay, but what does the Electoral College map look like in a scenario where, say, Rudy Giuliani/Rick Perry is the Republican ticket, going up against any of the plausible Democratic candidates? Is there reason to believe that Giuliani would have garnered significantly more or fewer votes than McCain, and would he have done significantly better or worse in any particular region of the country?

Giuliani might have done a little bit better than McCain in the Northeast, but it hardly matters, because none of the northeastern states was even close.
 
Okay, but what does the Electoral College map look like in a scenario where, say, Rudy Giuliani/Rick Perry is the Republican ticket, going up against any of the plausible Democratic candidates? Is there reason to believe that Giuliani would have garnered significantly more or fewer votes than McCain, and would he have done significantly better or worse in any particular region of the country?

He likely would of done worse overall than McCain TBH. While he may of done slightly better than McCain in the northeast, this would of been more than compensated by depressed turnout amongst social conservatives, which would of flipped socially conservative battleground states like Missouri, Georgia and the Dakotas leading to a much worse EC performance. Also without McCain's home state effect, he almost certainly would of lost Arizonia as well.
 

Ak-84

Banned
As for the general election, with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, any Republican candidate will lose.
This. Abraham Lincoln would have trouble winning as the 'Pub candidate after 15 Sep 2008. In OTL it was more or less neck and neck until then and McCain might have won based on the racist vote, which in OTL he pandered to.

Hell even Hillary would have struggled to lose and she excels at losing.
 
He was kind of the Jeb Bush of 2008, just as McCain was (sort of) the Trump of 2008. Compared to McCain, Giuliani was seen as a softie, liberal, out-of-touch, an elitist being forced on the voters by the establishment. The fact is McCain tapped into the same sentiments that Trump did eight years later--outsider, maverick, shot from the hip, spoke the "truth". That has always been just underneath the surface in the GOP. I'm really not sure how Rudy can overcome this; hmm, let me think for awhile.
 
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