Jeff Smith: On Rudy Guiliani’s Chances in 2012

By Jeff Smith, on Tue Jun 21, 2011 at 2:15 PM ET

As Joe Biden famously said during the 2008 primaries, each sentence in Rudy’s stump speech consisted of a noun, a verb, and 9/11.

So if Republicans want to spend next fall talking about the shining moment of the Obama presidency (the successful Seal raid), Rudy would be the perfect nominee.

No, I don’t think he could win New Hampshire. But even if he did, remember that New Hampshire – won by Buchanan in ’96 and McCain in ’00 – has been far from dispositive. South Carolina has been the key to the nomination. And as ’02 SC Senate candidate Alex Sanders said when Rudy came down to stump for Lindsay Graham that year (paraphrasing here), “He’s for gay rights. He’s pro-abortion. He wants to ban handguns. He cheated on his wife, got kicked out of his house, and moved in with two gay guys and a Shih Tzu. Is that South Carolina values?”

If Rudy runs and somehow makes it out of New Hampshire, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Sanders’ observation invoked by Rudy’s primary opponents or their operatives.