I commented some time ago on another list that Giuliani would prove to be unelectable. 

At the time I wrote this I did not imagine that any major candidate could run a campaign so utterly inept, so catastrophically idiotic, and so lacking the merest moiety of judgement as he did.

Thanks for ensuring my prediction came true, Rudy.  Hell of a job.

Played "Let's Make A Deal" with McCain and the RNC. What he found behind door #2 was a note that said sit down and shut up.

Ah yes, one of the few times I'll agree w/Joe Biden. As Biden would say,  all Giuliani had was a noun, a verb, and 9/11. Oh yes, and he was married to his second cousin. cooties, man....cooties.

Hey, he's America's Mayor, even though his former constituents in New York feel he's a total bag of sh*t.  He ran the limpest, least compelling campaign in recent memory, demonstrating that a one-issue candidate doesn't have a chance at this point.  And, his one issue lost considerable cachet in recent years, as did his credibility on the topic.  It appears that he's interested in being New York State Governor, but, the people in this state have tired of his crap and finally see him for what he is, namely, an ultra-sleazy political opportunist who's totally departed from reality.  So, he should just be content with raking in the dough at that specious consulting firm of his and at his law firm, which represents Hugo Chavez, a real friend of this country.

You can't win an election by seriously campaigning in only one state. His inspiring message: "9/11! 9/11! 9/11! 9/11!"

I like Rudy.  I loved him for Sept. 11, and how he handled that horrific event...how he was there for the people.  I studied his record, and I was disappointed to learn that he wasn't morally sound as far as abortion issues and marriage issues.  He did well in the campaign, but if he would have been stronger on these issues, he may have done better.

Rudy's campaign was perhaps the worst in American history, driving him from the top runner position to an early exit. What was he thinking?

Rudy really screwed up on this one. From the person with the most money, his failure really shows any campaign what not to do.

bust

UPDATE: Looking back on it now, three days after Rudy dropped out, he had as much chance to become the nominee of a national political party as would, let's say, Attila the Hun. He couldn't have won the Democratic Party nomination let alone the GOP.

ORIGINAL COMMENT: Well, Mr. "I Was Mayor When 9/11 Happened" Giuliani finally got to meet the voters and flunked. Goodbye and good luck

Horrible. They totally misjudged how to run on a national level, perhaps relying too much on name recognition. Essentially ignoring the early caucuses and primaries was a huge mistake, allowing others to not only catch up to one of the early favorites but pass him before they got the the bigger states Guiliani banked on. He did participate in the debates, but it takes more than that to keep your name in the news, especially when Romney, McCain, and Huckabee are drawing so much attention.

One of the biggest political meltdowns I can remember. It wasn't just the strange Florida strategy. It was also Giuliani's inability to gloss over his seamy past: sure, most elected officials have it, but Giuliani just looked uglier and creepier as time went by. Jon Stewart put it best with a Seinfeld analogy: "Uncle Leo" tried to sketch in some eyebrows but he still looked like a pig.

My local cartoonist said it best: there goes the weirdo with the Tourette Syndrome.

Rudy Giuliani's campaign packed it in today after a weak showing in Florida. They had staked their entire strategy on winning Florida. Giuliani spent weeks down there campaigning, yet he barely beat out Mike Huckabee for 3rd place. He isn't the first New York mayor to run for President who staked his entire strategy on Florida. When the late Mayor John Lindsay ran for the Democratic nomination in 1972, he made winning the Florida primary the centerpiece of his strategy. He lost the state by a large margin and dropped out. In order to win the primary, you have to adopt a 50 state strategy. In many respects, it is a game of momentum. Giuliani lost some of those early contests big time, and subsequently, he lost a lot of momentum going into Florida.

Why did Giuliani's campaign fail? The reality is that a socially liberal New Yorker winning the GOP nomination would have defied all the odds. Like I said a year ago on this site, Giuliani will come on strong but weaken as the primaries go on. He lost for a variety of reasons, not all of them associated with his liberalism. One of them was his inability to make the argument that he would be a successful leader at the national or federal level. He touted his leadership after 9/11 as a qualifing factor, but he overemphasized the terrorist attack in the primary. Much of it can be attributed to "9/11 fatigue" in my view. People are still concerned about terrorism, but Iraq, the economy, and public corruption have all become issues as well. Giuliani used 9/11 so much in his campaign appearances that Joe Biden quipped "there's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb and 9/11." He overused it, making it appear that he was profiting off the lives of the 3,000 people who lost their lives that day. Perhaps in 2002 Rudy Giuliani would have run away with the nomination, but time has allowed people to fully analyze his record. He did some good things in New York, but does that make him qualified to be President? Probably not. The voters made the right call here.

Who would have thought that America would have put 9-11 behind itself as quickly as it did.  But invading two countries and a extreme economic turnaround has reduced the focus on Giuliani's main touchstone and talking point.  He failed to make his national profile the launch pad for broader based support and his candidacy never got too far from ground zero.

The strategy of not seriously campaigning until the Florida primary seems to have not worked out. As of this post, his chances of pulling out a victory in Florida are slim. People will be questioning Rudy's campaign strategy  for quite some time. I think that by not campaignning in the other states, he did not get the exposure he needed  from the media.

The Onion headline said it much better than any of us: "Rudy Giuliani runs to be the president of 9-11!"

We're going to find out today if the Giuliani campaign strategy of ignoring the early primary states and focusing everything on Florida was genius or moronic. I'm thinking it's the latter. Giuliani was a guy who was a national front runner not so long ago - but by ignoring places like Iowa and New Hampshire, he has allowed McCain and Romney to dominate the headlines. It was super risky, and I'm not how the Giuliani campaign could justify the risk - was it a cost cutting measure?

If things go poorly today, Giuliani could become a legendary example for future generations of how not to run a presidential campaign.