I love TPM but posts like this are embarrassing:
Big Sigh of Relief for NY-Dems The NYDN says Rudy will announce tomorrow that he won’t run for senate next year. Which is pretty good news for the NY Dems and Sen. Gillibrand since he was running way ahead of her in the early polls.
I talk to a lot of New York State Democrats and (1) no one thought there was any chance that Rudy would run and (2) no one thought that, if Rudy ran, he’d have a chance of winning. This reaction from Philip Anderson is pretty typical. Rudy is a terrible campaigner who tends to poll well early on in races because of warm memories of the days when he was America’s mayor.
I thought everyone knew this after the 2008 Republican primary.
Let’s just stop pretending that Rudy has a future in politics at the state or national level.
valdivia
I agree. But I think as a NY sometimes Josh sees Rudy as the Rudy who ruled the city, not the Rudy we have now.
David
Sarcasm?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Um. Yeah. That ranks up there with “The sound you just heard is liberals spitting out their lattes.”
I can’t speak for NYers but I heaved a sigh of regret for all the comedy gold that A Noun A Verb and 9-11 would have left in his wake.
Steeplejack
@valdivia:
I thought the Rudy who ruled the city was bad enough. No?
DougJ
Sarcasm?
I thought the title was sarcasm until I saw that the sentiments were echoed in the post proper.
The Grand Panjandrum
This is the best news from Rudy’s camp since he got rid of that ridiculous comb over.
Robin G.
Really? I know next to nothing about NY politics, but I assumed that if Guiliani was polling well after the 2008 debacle, then he must truly be semi-popular in the state. I mean, how could those high numbers be “America’s Mayor”-based again? Didn’t he already blow that wad?
I totally trust actual New Yorkers on the subject, so I must be wrong. I’m just surprised. I assumed Rudy had such high unfavorables that he could never have been polled as leading in the first place, and then when I saw he was, figured he must (somehow) be genuinely popular.
Jeff
Ghouliani has to be the most over-rated pol in America today.
Forever blustering , puffed-up, petty, vindictive… add your adjective here.
He always polls better out-of-state than in, by rubes taken in by is
MR 911 facade. And it was a facade,since he was the man who put the
Emergency REsponse center in the WTC to begin with , so that it would be near to Gracie Mansion and his control.His personal life is a disgrace, even by Republican standards,and his star is being eclipsed in NYC by Bloomberg, who was and is a better mayor than Rudy– but that was a pathetically low bar to hop.
gex
To be fair, every time Rudy demonstrates that he has no future in politics I do sigh in relief. Not because of immediate threat, but out of appreciation that we’ve reached that point.
JenJen
Rudy!
What Doug said. After 2008, how is it that supposedly smart people like Chuck Todd and those jerkys at Politico were still swooning over Rudy?
4tehlulz
I guess Rudy couldn’t pass up the opportunity to run more death squads.
General Winfield Stuck
Rudy’s closet full of skeletons is like his ego. Ginormous.
jibeaux
My husband reported a week or so ago that Rudy was on the teevee pontificating about the shortcoming of Tiger Woods. Because this is where we are now. I assume it was just too last minute to book Gingrich and the big dog to share in the condemnation.
S. cerevisiae
Huh, I didn’t know Rudy was still around. I figured he was somewhere in South America helping some dictator organize his secret police.
El Cid
Yeah, but in fairness, any time it’s reported that Rudy Giuliani would be less involved in politics I breathe a sigh of relief, because that guy’s a dick.
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
Rudy Giuliani would keep New York safe from ferrets.
Doesn’t that earn him at least a couple votes?
DougJ
because that guy’s a dick.
True, but that’s not even a bad thing in a NYS governor.
DougJ
Really? I know next to nothing about NY politics, but I assumed that if Guiliani was polling well after the 2008 debacle, then he must truly be semi-popular in the state. I mean, how could those high numbers be “America’s Mayor”-based again? Didn’t he already blow that wad?
Believe it or not, his exit from the 2008 race was so fast that he didn’t have a chance to alienate as many people as he would have otherwise.
The point here is that he has to run a campaign to become Senator or Governor. And there is no way his campaign won’t be a disaster. There is also no way he won’t get hammered about Bernie Kerik (and lots of other stuff) by the NYC media, which is fairly aggressive. I just can’t see any way he would win.
EarBucket
I assumed Josh was being sarcastic, sort of a “Puh-lease don’t throw me in the briar patch!” kind of thing.
Colin R.
Don’t forget his aborted Senate run against Clinton in 2000. Any time he faces a real challenge, he quits.
valdivia
@Steeplejack:
Yeah absolutely but he was fairly popular and won two elections. That changed towards the end of his term but he was electable until then and seen as electable.
beltane
There was no way in hell Rudy was going to run for anything. 1) He hates campaigning; 2) His closet is crammed to the gills with skeletons. I have no idea why any NY Democrat would be afraid of him.
Think about it, Rudy will be enjoying Carnival in Rio, why would he want to be out there fielding questions about his relationship with Bernie Kerik in every diner from Elmhurst to Elmira?
PeakVT
Big Sigh of Relief for NY-Dems
Is this a sign of incipient Villageritis?
MikeJ
@beltane:
Do you think any media people would ask? It would so impolite. It’s just not done.
danimal
Rudy can generate a lot of money that would have to be matched by the NY Dems. Maybe he can’t win, but he can be a major PITA.
aimai
What Gex and Jeff said. Rudy is seriously overrated and awful and yet its good news that he’s riding off into the sunset.
Also, over the course of this last year I’ve really come to find TPM just utterly unreliable–their headlines never match the text below, their take on what is serious or not never matches my understanding of the issue if I have any background knowledge. I’m really sorry, because I admired JMM very much for breaking the big –damn, alzheimers, its not AG, what is the worrrrdddd?–lawyers forced to resign story.
aimai
Anya
Didn’t Giuliani’s nominee for Homeland Security convicted? I don’t understand how anyone thought he could have won.
Geeno
Rudy is a classic example of the adage “familiarity breeds contempt”. The more he campaigns the lower his numbers go.
boomshanka
“tends to poll well early on in races because of warm memories of the days when he was America’s mayor.”
Well, his job as New York’s mayor before that has made a more lasting impression, and plenty of folk credit him for turning the city around to become what it is today. I think that negates any incumbent edge Gillibrand might get against a lesser known opponent.
And he’s a bigger threat running a state campaign where he doesn’t need to pander to the flyover social conservatives like he does in a national campaign, despite the teabagger movement. So if he returned to his socially liberal, but blood-thirsty, tax-cutting roots there’s a pretty good chance he can win.
Geeno
Also, don’t forget the ghost of Donna Hanover (his ex) hanging over him. Donna still has friends (probably more than Rudy can say right there) and can get herself on TV.
jimBOB
There ought to be a word for media-darling pseudo-politicians whose electoral prospects are zero but who keep making vague noises about running for stuff in order to keep their place on the yakker’s circuit. Newt, Rudy and Sarah are the best examples, though there are others as well.
John Dillinger
Rudy likes the high life. He could live the high life while pretending to run for President (see the link for the primary expenditures below, and the amount spent on resorts and ritzy hotels), but not while running for a lesser office, and would have to dial back his lifestyle while in either of those offices. I read he signed up to do security for the Rio Olympics. That sounds like a sweet gig to me, particularly if he again uses his command center the same way he did in NYC, but this time with Carnivale dancers. But let’s hope it doesn’t suffer the same fate his previous command center did.
http://query.nictusa.com/pres/2007/YE/C00430512/B_PAYEE_C00430512.html
mk3872
I agree with Doug.
I think this reaction from Josh exemplifies the downside to putting too much weight behind a poll conducted so early in a different environment polling an un-declared challenger.
It is simple name recognition that is lifting his numbers in this case.
TPM and the DC press fall into this trap far too often because they are in love with a 365-day election cycle.
Remember in 2007 when we were told that 2008 would be Rudy v Hillary and that Rudy would win?
Faux News
I think Jeff said it best of all. However don’t forget that the NYC police and fire fighter unions would LOVE to see Ghouliani run just so they could shoot him down. They despise that man and will ruin him if he runs for any office.
T. Scheisskopf
I was driven well-beyond the point of distraction when The Rude One stuck his nose into the recent NJ governor’s race.
If we want bullshit like that, we’ll head to a farm.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Colin R.: Palin/Goolieani 2012!
Campaign motto: Quitt3rs nevr loze.
thomas
Rudy, like Palin, aint runnin’ for nothin’. Neither one wants to take the pay cut. They will float their names out occassionally to keep the lap-dog media fawning but it’s all about the $$
Jared
I saw somewhere that Peter “I.R.A. Coddler” King was also running ahead of Gillibrand. Any truth to this?
gopher2
Right, because terrible campaigners become the Republican Mayor of NYC for eight years.
DougJ
Do you think any media people would ask? It would so impolite. It’s just not done.
Believe me, the NYC media is more than happy to ask. Don’t conflate the New York Observer and the Daily News with ABC and CNN.
DougJ
I think Jeff said it best of all. However don’t forget that the NYC police and fire fighter unions would LOVE to see Ghouliani run just so they could shoot him down. They despise that man and will ruin him if he runs for any office.
Yes, that is my impression too.
DougJ
Right, because terrible campaigners become the Republican Mayor of NYC for eight years.
Manhattan ain’t Morrisville, my friend.
gopher2
@DougJ:
I don’t get your point. Rudy has demonstrated that he knows how to run an organized and disciplined campaign and that he can handle the most difficult media in the world. It’s not a question of whether he has the talent, it’s whether he wants to employ that talent.
The poster above who said he’s not running because he doesn’t want to give up his opulent lifestyle is probably right. This implies, however, that Rudy would know what a good campaign would look like and just doesn’t feel like doing it ( a wise man once said that “knowing is half the battle.”)
Frankly, I don’t blame him. I would rather fly private, make $20 mill a year, live in a NYC penthouse, and travel the world while Judith shops on 5th Ave then sit around a bunch of old farts all day arguing about whether someone should get an extra minute to babble incoherently.
Steeplejack
@gopher2:
I’m not eve sure Rudy could get reëlected in NYC, after the downward arc of his second term and his subsequent checkered career.
Surabaya Stew
Recall back in the year 2000, how Rudy was supposed to be challenging Hillary for the Senate seat? Before he came down with prostate cancer, the man was totally unenthusiastic about the entire process. For example, he canceled a day of campaigning upstate in order to catch the Yankee’s home opener, saying that it was more important to him! There are plenty of other stories like this from the 2008 GOP presidential nomination as well.
I wouldn’t call it lazyness, as Rudy never took one day of vacation during his 8 years as mayor, but in the recess of his small and cold heart, my former mayor knows he has already reached his peak. He’s simply not cut out for anything else in life; (ironically, just like the MILF from Alaska!), so instead, Rudy (and Sarah) will milk his/her past career for every penny he/she can. Money is a pretty good substitute for political power….
disappointedGOPer
Rudy Giuliani’s epitaph.
feebog
When you run a Presidential campaign that can’t eclipse Fred Thompson’s, you suck as a campaigner. Hey, you can only run so many stories on HCR, I give TPM a pass on this.
capt
Let’s just stop pretending that Rudy has a future in politics at the state or national level.
Yeah but he might have a future on some reality show or Dancing with the Stars
lol
Maude
@aimai: US attys, forgot how to spell it. I though it was me. TPM became Drudge like and Huffpo became gossip.
Tonybrown74
Or RuPaul’s Drag Race
catclub
aimai: US Attorneys scandal
Jim Pharo
I think you all dismiss his potential interest in running for NY Gov. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him go for that. It’s a much better platform for a Presidential run, and he’d be tempted by the chance to go after Mario Cuomo’s (idiot, sadly) son.
But the upthreaders are right about the skeletons: they’ll be a gas to hear about if he DOES run…
MNPundit
And of course, Josh is to much of a coward or too desperate for recognition to place comments on his posts. Oh no, you can never respond to Josh Marshall because is too fucking above you.
I long for the day we can afford to purge HIM.
Sly
The only thing worth saying about Giuliani was already said by Jimmy Breslin, the only sexist bigot I ever loved:
“He’s a little man in search of a balcony.”