Bye-bye, Rudy

Whatever happened to Rudy Giuliani? He was a favorite here in California, and a frontrunner across the country just a few short months ago. In the past few months, however, Giuliani’s support waned then nearly died in the polls. He was hoping for a comeback in Florida then maybe gaining momentum in California, but the campaign never quite reached that point.
Now we’ve all heard the old adage, “all press is good press.” Giuliani proved it true albeit with a slight variation. Bad press followed by no press. Giuliani’s communications shop had a flawed strategy. They displayed a form of arrogance to the media that damaged Giuliani’s campaign more than anything else.
When the New York Times published a crushing article regarding Giuliani’s use of mayoral campaign funds to pay for his personal trips to the Hamptons in 1999 and 2000, it took more than a month for Giuliani’s communications team to respond with anything and have the article retracted. Had his campaign team been more on the ball, they might have been able to save the campaign and themselves.
It is mistakes like these that cost a candidate an entire campaign. With the candidates we have left in the Republican Party, I know everyone is keeping their fingers crossed for the one who is slightly better than the other.

The Conservative Divide

Fred Thompson has dropped his bid for the Republican nomination with a simple three sentence statement which was released to the Associated Press earlier today. For a campaign that began with an appearance on The Tonight Show just a few months ago, this was nothing short of a major disappointment for the GOP. It was this man, many believed, that could unify the party behind the three principles of what has been called Reagan Conservatism. These pillars of the modern conservative party bring together fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, and foreign policy conservatives. While all remaining candidates stand for at least one of these principles, none can claim with any honesty to hold all three. The danger now lies in the possibility that the party will be divided causing many Republicans to stay home in November. Will a social conservative vote for Rudy? Will a foreign policy conservative vote for Huckabee? The fact is that many will be alienated one way or another. Romney is good on the economy, McCain and Giuliani are good on foreign policy, Huckabee is a social Conservatives dream, and Fred....well, Fred is going home for now only to reemerge later as a possible running mate.

Thanks and some recent links

Thanks to everyone who has taken the leap in the first few days. Special thanks to Richmond Communication Professor Paul Achter for his 'Its the economy' post from Friday.

I will be going over the technological medium again in class tomorrow. I would like to work with everyone to get you up and posting in week 2 of the course.

In the interim, here are some quick reads and links to keep you current on the communicative nature of the campaign:

• Peter Applebome of the New York Times asks "Is Eloquence Overrated?" and gets some interesting perspectives from prominent Communication scholars.
  
• Barack Obama made a push for 'unity' to take its place alongside 'change' as a crucial campaign theme. His speech at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA is an interesting effort to shift the recent campaign conversation among the Democrats. Watch the speech via c-span (using media player or read it at his website.
• Some of you noted this theme already (nice job djc), but how do delegate counts 'matter' alongside 'winning a primary or caucus?' CNN tries to make sense of Clinton's 'win' in Nevada and it opens the door to Gretchen's question of a brokered convention. As we learn how this new primary season works it will be interesting if the attention given to these primaries doesn't provide as much closure as folks anticipated. This is certainly apparent in Romney's delegate-heavy strategy.
• Still lots of divergent trends on the GOP side. Giuliani continues to struggle in the polls, despite some new ads that have caused a stir. When Chuck Norris is getting a good deal of coverage, it may be a sign that there is a long way to go before picking a nominee.
• Finally, be sure to take a quick look at the reaction from tonight's Democratic debate in South Carolina.

See you tomorrow.

Rudy Giuliani Wins the Michigan Primary?

Yes it is true that simply by looking at the number Rudy was far from technically winning Michigan, he only received 2.85% of the vote. Yes he did finish behind Ron Paul and Law and Order's own Fred Dalton Thompson. However, Mitt Romney's win in Michigan means that the Republican field is wide open without a true front runner.
Rudy Giuliani’s campaign decided a few months ago that they were going to focus their campaign on Super Tuesday. With big states such as New York, Rudy’s home state, California and a variety of states in the Northeast where Rudy is best known, voting on February 5th he knows he had to hang on until then. The strategy was unquestionably risky because it relied on the premise that there would not be a clear leader in the race for the Republican nomination going into the February 5th primaries, so far it has paid off.
Going into Iowa Romney seemed the front-runner, Rudy was hoping for a Huckabee victory to upset Romney’s stance at the favorite for the nomination. He got it. Then in New Hampshire, Rudy was hoping for a big McCain win, therefore denying Romney the first two primaries where he poured in millions of dollars for ads. Going into Michigan the media seemed ready to declare McCain as the frontrunner barring a loss in Michigan. Had McCain won Michigan he would’ve then won South Carolina easily, probably Nevada and certainly Florida. At that point almost all Republican money would be in his hands enabling him to run ads in all Super Tuesday States. However that isn’t what happened, Romney wins Michigan and the confusion continues.
As long as this back and forth continues going into Super Tuesday, Rudy will continue to be in a position to have enough delegates to be the Republican nominee for President.