page_title: Rudy Giuliani
section_title: 2008 presidential campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Rudy Giuliani / Post-mayoralty / Politics / 2008 presidential campaign
caption_attribution_description: English: Rudy Giuliani at a 2008 Campaign event in Derry
context_page_description: Rudolph William Louis Giuliani KBE, is an American attorney and politician. He led the 1980s federal prosecution of New York City mafia bosses, and led the city's civic cleanup as its mayor from 1994 to 2001. In 2017, US President Donald Trump appointed him cybersecurity advisor. In 2018, he joined Trump's personal legal team. Politically a Democrat and then Independent in the 1970s, Giuliani has been a Republican since the 1980s. The US Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983, he was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1983 to 1989. After a failed New York City Mayoral election campaign in 1989, he succeeded in 1993, and was reelected in 1997, holding a platform of toughness on crime.
  Mayor Giuliani appointed as New York City's new police commissioner an outsider, William Bratton. Reforming the police department's administration and policing practices, they applied the broken windows theory, which cites social disorder, like disrepair and vandalism, for attracting loitering addicts, panhandlers, and prostitutes, followed by serious and violent criminals.
context_section_description: In November 2006 Giuliani announced the formation of an exploratory committee toward a run for the presidency in 2008. In February 2007 he filed a "statement of candidacy" and confirmed on the television program Larry King Live that he was indeed running.
  Early polls showed Giuliani with one of the highest levels of name recognition and support among the Republican candidates. Throughout most of 2007 he was the leader in most nationwide opinion polling among Republicans. Senator John McCain, who ranked a close second behind the New York Mayor, had faded, and most polls showed Giuliani to have more support than any of the other declared Republican candidates, with only former Senator Fred Thompson and former Governor Mitt Romney showing greater support in some per-state Republican polls. On November 7, 2007, Giuliani's campaign received an endorsement from evangelist, Christian Broadcasting Network founder, and past presidential candidate Pat Robertson. This was viewed by political observers as a possibly key development in the race, as it gave credence that evangelicals and other social conservatives could support Giuliani despite some of his positions on social issues such as abortion and gay rights.
  Giuliani's campaign hit a difficult stretch during the last two months of 2007, when Bernard Kerik, whom Giuliani had recommended for the position of Secretary of Homeland Security, was indicted on 16 counts of tax fraud and other federal charges. The media reported that when Giuliani was the mayor of New York, he billed several tens of thousands of dollars of mayoral security expenses to obscure city agencies. Those expenses were incurred while he visited Judith Nathan, with whom he was having an extramarital affair (later analysis showed the billing to likely be unrelated to hiding Nathan). Several stories were published in the press regarding clients of Giuliani Partners and Bracewell & Giuliani who were in opposition to goals of American foreign policy. Giuliani's national poll numbers began steadily slipping and his unusual strategy of focusing more on later, multi-primary big states rather than the smaller, first-voting states was seen at risk.
  Despite his strategy, Giuliani competed to a substantial extent in the January 8, 2008 New Hampshire primary but finished a distant fourth with 9 percent of the vote. Similar poor results continued in other early contests, when Giuliani's staff went without pay in order to focus all efforts on the crucial late January Florida Republican primary. The shift of the electorate's focus from national security to the state of the economy also hurt Giuliani, as did the resurgence of McCain's similarly themed campaign. On January 29, 2008, Giuliani finished a distant third in the Florida result with 15 percent of the vote, trailing McCain and Romney. Facing declining polls and lost leads in the upcoming large Super Tuesday states, including that of his home New York, Giuliani withdrew from the race on January 30, endorsing McCain.
  Giuliani's campaign ended up $3.6 million in arrears, and in June 2008 Giuliani sought to retire the debt by proposing to appear at Republican fundraisers during the 2008 general election, and have part of the proceeds go towards his campaign. During the 2008 Republican National Convention, Giuliani gave a prime-time speech that praised McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, while criticizing Democratic nominee Barack Obama. He cited Palin's executive experience as a mayor and governor and belittled Obama's lack of same, and his remarks were met with wild applause from the delegates. Giuliani continued to be one of McCain's most active surrogates during the remainder of McCain's eventually unsuccessful campaign.
caption: Giuliani at a campaign event in Derry, New Hampshire, the day before the New Hampshire primary
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