Rudy Giuliani drops out of the race

Rudy Giuliani officially withdrew his candidacy today, the day after the Florida primary.

My personal point of view is that Giuliani just had too many negatives to win. Let's face it, a Giuliani-Clinton match-up in the general election would have been a nine-month symphony of devastating anti-Giuliani attacks. Liberals around the country were practically drooling with glee over the prospect of "swift-boating" Giuliani in 2008.

An alternative way of looking at the downfall of Giuliani is by observing that the mainstream media very deliberately torpedoed his campaign. The Politico has some good analysis of this (provided that you read between the lines). For example:

But in the ensuing years — as the war in Iraq plummeted in popularity, concern over imminent attacks ebbed, and Americans became increasingly worried about the economy — the evocative image of Giuliani managing a city under attack became less and less relevant.

You see, as long as President Bush was "Mr. 90% Approval Rating", lionizing Giuliani gave liberals a way of expressing patriotism after 9/11 without opening expressing support for Bush. Now it's 2008 and Bush's approval rating is swirling around and around the bowl refusing to flush, so Giuliani's function for liberals has simply vanished. Liberals don't need to praise Giuliani to make Bush pale by comparison when Iraq is doing that job admirably for them.