SIMI VALLEY – His presidential campaign called him “America’s Mayor” after 9/11, but in the end that was a close as Rudy Giuliani would get to the Oval Office in the White House.
On Wednesday, just feet from where Giuliani distinguished himself in the first debate of the campaign last May, he graciously ended his run for the presidency and endorsed his friend, Arizona Senator John McCain, whose own remarkable political resurrection has paralleled the former New York mayor’s own collapse.
“John McCain is the most qualified candidate to be the next commander in chief of the United States,” Giuliani said at an afternoon press conference in the Spin Room for the Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
“He is an American hero, and America could use some heroes in the White House. He is man of honor and integrity, and you can underline both.”
In endorsing McCain, Giuliani gave yet more momentum to McCain’s surge that began with winning the New Hampshire primary and continued with triumphs in South Carolina and Florida, where Giuliani, finishing a disappointing, far distant third, decided to bow out of the race.
Gracious to the end, Giuliani was humorous and self-deprecating in making his announcement with McCain and his wife Cindy at his side.
“When you run for president, you spend a lot of time thinking about what qualities you would want in a chief executive of the United States,” Giuliani said.. “Someone who can be trusted in times of crisis. Someone with a clear vision about the challenges facing our nation. Someone with the will and perseverance to get great goals accomplished.
“Obviously, I thought I was that person. The voters made a different choice.”
At another point, Giuliani said he had even indicated during the campaign that he would support McCain, should he himself fail in seeking the nomination. Then he joked that now he had no choice.
“If I endorse anyone else,” he told a room full of reporters and cameramen, “you would say I was flip-flopping.”
For Giuliani, the political decline came after employing a risky political strategy in which he passed on the early caucuses and primaries to focus on Florida and after revelations in the new media of his questionable activity and behavior while mayor of New York.
Giuliani had also suffered politically from the improvement of the U.S. position in the war in Iraq where the limited success of President Bush’s “surge” strategy of he past year also improved the political fortunes of McCain, a staunch backer of the war.
Giuliani and the McCains arrived at the Reagan Library early in the afternoon to anticipation that he would be making his withdrawal announcement and endorsement of McCain just hours before Wednesday night’s debate.
“It’s appropriate to make this announcement here at the Reagan Library,” Giuliani said in beginning his remarks. “President Reagan’s leadership remains an inspiration for both John McCain and myself.”
Veteran political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, senior scholar at the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California, said Giuliani’s political collapse had changed
the dynamics of the Republican race almost overnight.
“Is this a hoot! About a month ago I thought there could be a brokered convention and, if there were a brokered convention, it would be on the Republican side,” she said. “But now it is possible that if there were a brokered convention, it would be on the Democratic side.”
McCain called Giuliani “my strong right arm and my partner and my friend.”
“There will be a clear choice this November,” McCain said, “and I believe my life has prepared me, a life of service and a life of dedication, to lead this nation.”
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