Rudy Giuliani says he's still a better choice than John McCain for president
With friends like these, why do rivals bother with opposition researchers? Rudy Giuliani was on CNN Tuesday talking about John McCain and the presidential campaign, and said that he still thinks he was the best choice to be president. Giuliani was there to buff up McCain and his foreign policy credentials in the w
ake of the rock Wesley Clark tossed the other day.
When asked by interviewer John Roberts whether he thought he was better qualified than McCain to run the country, Giuliani said, "I thought I was best-qualified to be president." (The video is here, and this exchange comes around the 3:12 mark).
Now not many politicians would leave a race as Giuliani did and say later, "You know, the voters were right, I wasn't the best choice." Political egos don't cut that way. But the McCain camp had to wince, assuming they're getting CNN down there in Colombia. The idea behind sending surrogates out is to have them make you look good, not make you look like a consolation prize.
Throughout the interview, Giuliani sounded as much like a candidate as a surrogate, talking up his own political resume in a session that had a peculiar deja vu feeling to it. But Giuliani assured Roberts, "I'm not a candidate. I'm not a choice." Not at the moment, no, but ...
-- Scott Martelle
Photo: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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Rudy is the term "dipstick" personified.
Posted by: John Crawford | July 02, 2008 at 09:06 AM
Rudy was a candidate until his policy of socialized adultery became publicly known. That dude is slimy.
Posted by: Dirk | July 02, 2008 at 04:16 PM
If you think that George W. Bush is a great president then Rudy Giuliani is obviously the most qualified to follow in his footseps.
Posted by: Brad | July 02, 2008 at 04:32 PM
Barack Obama is also a better candidate than John "Bush" McCain
Posted by: McCain is Bush | July 02, 2008 at 05:17 PM
Rudy's time has gone. He should ride off into the sunset.
or take a four months off and go to Siberia for a vacation.
VJ Machiavelli
http://www.vjmachiavelli.blogspot.com
ps.This election is all about shoes, yes shoes do we keep them on or do we take them off and never put them on again when we board a plane. it's that simple. On shoes or off shoes
Posted by: VJ Machiavelli | July 03, 2008 at 01:08 AM
any slug would be a better choice - and better qualified.
not so rudy.
Posted by: dave | July 04, 2008 at 08:22 AM