Opinion: California, here he comes
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Republican wannabe nominee Rudy Giuliani returns to California Monday with a 3 P.M. speech in San Francisco at the Fairmont Hotel and a 10:15 A.M. appearance in Riverside on Tuesday to greet voters at the Coffee Depot on Mission Inn Avenue.
Unlike his GOP opponents, who are focused largely on Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and on some days Florida, Giuliani is taking a broader national plan. It could be a risky strategy if Mitt Romney comes out of Iowa and New Hampshire with wins and some momentum, heading into more conservative South Carolina. And Giuliani is adding more economic material to his speeches, which have been heavily focused on on 9/11 and terror.
In Iowa, where Giuliani trails, he’s forsaken the Aug. 11 straw poll in Ames; no Republican has ever won the Iowa caucuses without competing in Ames. But Giuliani has got religion on ethanol, a sacred subject there. ‘Ethanol, biodiesel, clean coal, nuclear power, more refineries, conservation,’ he said. ‘There’s no single solution, but each one of these has to be expanded.’
At Morg’s restaurant in Waterloo, the former mayor acknowledged he was behind but said he still believes he can win the Hawkeye state. ‘If we do,’ he said, ‘it will surprise a lot of people.’
With John McCain’s campaign in trouble, now is the time for Giuliani to gain ground. In other appearances, Giuliani appeared to put a little distance between himself and the Bush administration, raising questions about whether the U.S. pushed Pakistan’s president hard enough to clean up the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
‘We should have organized ourselves,’ he said, ‘so that we could accomplish in Iraq what we had to accomplish without taking anything away from accomplishing in Afghanistan and Pakistan what we had to accomplish.’
‘America is too consumed with Iraq,’ Giuliani added. ‘We’ve got to be patient and committed, but we’ve got to multitask. We’ve got to have conversations beyond Iraq. Iran is more dangerous than Iraq.’
--Andrew Malcolm