October 11, 2008
Rudy's popularity shaken in South Carolina
Just three months ago, Rudy Giuliani wowed Republicans in Rock Hill, S.C., sending them home smiling and enthusiastic about the down-to-earth Yankee from New York City.
"He took that room and put them in his pocket and they were with him when he went to the airport," said David Angel, a GOP activist who saw him off after the Oct. 14 event.
"I felt South Carolina was absolutely ripe for the picking," he said. "With some effort, he could just have cleaned house."
But after that visit, Giuliani made no effort in South Carolina. His campaign there already had been shaken by scandal, blunted by a shift in issues and surpassed by two surging rivals. And it shows.
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"The irony is that Rudy Giuliani has been a favorite here," said J. David Woodard, co-director of Clemson University's South Carolina poll. "Four, five, six months ago, Rudy Giuliani was at the top. Now he's at 3 percent."
Giuliani walked away as he shifted tactics in a strategy that targets delegates in Florida, New York and other big states, his campaign says.
The reality is that Giuliani always faced long odds in South Carolina, the campaign added, and it was not worth the cost and effort to beat those odds in Saturday's primary.
"We've had to make some decisions about where we can maximize our resources and our dollars," said spokeswoman Maria Comella.
Giuliani left behind the ruins of possibility in yet another early primary, likely his sixth loss in six states.
"I think as the voters got to know him better and better, the less and less they liked him," Woodard said.
Early on in his campaign, however, South Carolina loomed large for Giuliani.
He signed the up-and-coming state treasurer, Thomas Ravenel, as his chairman, and tapped James Bowie, the executive director of the influential nonprofit South Carolina Firefighters Association to lead Firefighters for Rudy, a group to remind voters of 9/11.
In March, in one of his first big splashes as a candidate, Giuliani went to a Spartanburg fire station to highlight Firefighters for Rudy.
In May he went back to make another splash, proposing at the Citadel to expand the military by 10 brigades.
Giuliani's effort fit his image: the former New York mayor who could do the impossible -- a Catholic and Yankee who could win over the Protestant Bible Belt in the Deep South.
His polls soared nationally and in South Carolina on his celebrity as "America's mayor."
But in June, things soured with the surprise indictment of Ravenel for cocaine use. Ravenel will be sentenced Jan. 28, the day before the Florida primary Giuliani must win.
Bowie often appeared for Giuliani at events, Woodard said. Bowie invited Giuliani to address his association's convention in July and endorsed him.
"We are never going to elect a fire chief to be president of the United States. But if Rudy Giuliani gets elected, it's the closest thing to it that we're ever going to have," he said.
By Aug. 30, the campaign had named Bowie national co-chair of a broad-based group, First Responders for Rudy.
But then, Bowie quit his nonprofit job and campaign post. He refuses to explain why.
Local blogs blame it on his backing of Giuliani. The group posted a note saying it doesn't endorse candidates, but its officers deny that's why Bowie left.
Other blogs cited Bowie's indictment in 1992 for pilfering $3,000 in training funds while at the state fire academy.
Meanwhile, John McCain began to come back after early falters and Mike Huckabee unexpectedly soared, crowding the field in South Carolina.
By October, with the calming of Iraq, Giuliani found national security, his key issue, eclipsed by the economy and social issues. And his own personal baggage weighed him down.
In his 10th and last stop in South Carolina, news of a looming indictment of Bernie Kerik, his former police commissioner, dominated his events.
Angel said he's disappointed Giuliani quit South Carolina and did poorly in early votes.
"I'd have to say, unless I hear more out of Rudy," he said, "Ron Paul is coming my way."
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