Rudy Giuliani no doubt thinks he should be drafted as the Republican nominee for the presidency. It would certainly save him a lot of money not having to compete in primaries he showed himself incapable of winning last time around. But he's apparently pondering a run anyway if, by the end of summer, he believes the other candidates in the field can't beat Barack Obama. How exactly he will arrive at this judgment is left unsaid:
As both parties fight over a debt reduction deal during the debate in Congress over raising the debt ceiling, Giuliani said. “It would be really nice if we could bring back John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.”
“Both of them could probably preach some wisdom to both political parties,” he explained. “John F Kennedy could preach the value of tax cuts to a party that doesn’t seem to understand that, and preach major tax cuts which really worked for Kennedy.”
“And Reagan could preach the art of the possible, meaning you can’t get everything you want. Try to get 50, 60, 70, 80 percent,” he said. “That would really make Washington work a lot better.”
If only we could get back to the 75 percent top income tax rate that JFK backed. As for the vaunted "pragmatism" of Ronald Reagan, this is the guy who gave the GOP marching orders that it still follows by nearly tripling the trillion dollar national debt that he decried in his first campaign and who raised taxes several times. Quite the pair for Guiliani to emulate. As long, that is, as the tea partiers don't look behind the curtain.
However he decides that nobody in the current boatload of Republicans is or is not up to defeating Obama, Giuliani says he'll be making his decision by September. Perfect timing if the answer is yes! The man who made "9/11" his middle name can launch his campaign on the 10th anniversary of the attack.