Could Guiliani have won in 2008?

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Could Rudy Giuliani have won the GOP primaries, and perhaps even the national election? Could he have toned down his personal life, or at least not have it be the point of attention? He seems like he was a fairly strong candidate until the scandals hit.
 
If Giuliani had put the right effort into it, he may have won the nomination, but Obama would have beaten him in the general. Hillary more easily.
 
Could Rudy Giuliani have won the GOP primaries, and perhaps even the national election? Could he have toned down his personal life, or at least not have it be the point of attention? He seems like he was a fairly strong candidate until the scandals hit.


Here's the thing: He was a strong candidate popularity-wise at first. He was America's Mayor and well liked and all that. But beyond that, he was not a good candidate. He knew damned all about policy or issues, and his response to everything was invariably something about 9/11 to the point where he was a self parody. That's why he faltered; he was a paper tiger candidate. He looked better than what the contents actually were.
 
His personal scandals derailed him in 2000, not 2008 by which time they were ancient news. No, Giuliani's problem was the same as Ed Muskie's in 1972: a roof without a foundation. Giuliani had no base within the GOP, was too socially liberal (John McCain, stem cells aside, is a social conservative) and his fiscal/national security hawk constituency had already been claimed by McCain. Furthermore he was either unwilling or unable to engage in the sort of retail politics that wins Iowa and New Hampshire, with a poor campaign strategy. For the general election, Salon explains what would happen quite well.

Even if Giuliani wins New Hampshire and Florida, he needs to win Iowa and/or SC. Both of which are dominated by social conservatives. Then there's the rest of the South, without which a Republican nomination cannot be won. The math is simply not there.
 
His personal scandals derailed him in 2000, not 2008 by which time they were ancient news. No, Giuliani's problem was the same as Ed Muskie's in 1972: a roof without a foundation. Giuliani had no base within the GOP, was too socially liberal (John McCain, stem cells aside, is a social conservative) and his fiscal/national security hawk constituency had already been claimed by McCain. Furthermore he was either unwilling or unable to engage in the sort of retail politics that wins Iowa and New Hampshire, with a poor campaign strategy. For the general election, Salon explains what would happen quite well.

Even if Giuliani wins New Hampshire and Florida, he needs to win Iowa and/or SC. Both of which are dominated by social conservatives. Then there's the rest of the South, without which a Republican nomination cannot be won. The math is simply not there.

I disagree, as I don't think the Democrats tried to sabotage Giuliani's campaign the way Nixon was able to destroy Muskie's 72 campaign.
 
His social liberal views resent a big problem in winning the Republican nomination and a biggerproblrm wininng the Republican base during the general election. He also has big problems with his arrogance and his personal life. I say Giuliani 30 percent social conservative third party candidate 13 percent Obama 54 percent In the electoral college Rudi wins Ak. ID Wy Ok and Al 26 electoral votes social conservative wins UT 5 rlectoral votes Obama wins everywhere else 507 electoral votes.
 
His personal scandals derailed him in 2000, not 2008 by which time they were ancient news. No, Giuliani's problem was the same as Ed Muskie's in 1972: a roof without a foundation. Giuliani had no base within the GOP, was too socially liberal (John McCain, stem cells aside, is a social conservative) and his fiscal/national security hawk constituency had already been claimed by McCain. Furthermore he was either unwilling or unable to engage in the sort of retail politics that wins Iowa and New Hampshire, with a poor campaign strategy. For the general election, Salon explains what would happen quite well.

Even if Giuliani wins New Hampshire and Florida, he needs to win Iowa and/or SC. Both of which are dominated by social conservatives. Then there's the rest of the South, without which a Republican nomination cannot be won. The math is simply not there.

Agree. The math for Giuliani wasn't there in terms of delegates. If RG had a viable NH strategy and won NH and FL, and Huckabee won IA as in OTL, I suspect you have a Giuliani/Huckabee race, with McCain out of the running after NH and McCain's SC support going to Huckabee. Giuliani loses that one with rank-and-file GOP voters on social issues in the states where the delegates are and Huckabee then goes down in flames in the fall.
 
In a word, no: he was an unappealing candidate and had no base within the party. His initial popularity was due to his response to 9/11, but once it became apparent that that was pretty much all he had, it ceased to work, especially as by 2008 9/11 was rapidly receding into memory.
 
Not really. He seemed to be running off of his star power from 9/11. He didn't have enough experience, and like others have said, most of his answers had something to do with 9/11.
 
It's not impossible, but it's pretty unlikely. Maybe *IF* McCain dropped out, and *IF* Giuliani came up with credible and convincing answers on abortion, for example (maybe pledging that while personally pro-choice, he opposed Roe v. Wade), and *IF* Giuliani spent more time campaigning on the ground and developed more credible policies.

That's a lot of "if's." Republicans were desperate enough in 2008 they maybe could have gone for Giuliani, but it's a real stretch.
 
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