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Rudy's Retreat From Politics Means Boring NY GOP Tickets
By
Jen Chung
Published Dec 23, 2009
Modified Dec 23, 2009
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By
Jen Chung
Published Dec 23, 2009
Modified Dec 23, 2009
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Yesterday, former NYC mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani announced he won't run for Senate (or Governor) because his businesses—security consulting firm Giuliani and Partners and law practice Bracewell and Giuliani—are at "critical points". Specifically, he noted his consulting gig for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, reasoning at a press conference, "It would be hard running from Brazil... We have some very significant commitments for next year that would make it impossible for me to really run full-time... So that's the main reason." Yeah, forget that his (former?) BFF Bernie Kerik is headed to jail.
Giuliani spoke at a press conference to endorse Republican Rick Lazio for Governor. (Lazio and Giuliani share a political history because Lazio stepped in when Giuliani decided not to run for Senate against Hillary Clinton in 2000, thanks to prostate cancer and the public break-up of his marriage.) But reporters were more interested in Giuliani; the NY Times had fun analyzing his spiel, "Mr. Giuliani, bald and a touch jowly and thick around the collar at age 65, insisted plausibly enough that he was quite wealthy, very busy with his consulting firm, his speeches, his television appearances — and that he was happy. 'My life is interesting,' he said, adding that familiar pop of his eyes for emphasis. 'It’s not as if I’m looking for something interesting to do.'"
Now that Giuliani is out, and since former governor George Pataki doesn't seem interested in running for office again, the NY State GOP doesn't have any big names to go against freshman Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. As for Lazio...well, Baruch professor Douglas Muzzio tells the Times, "It tells you the Republicans don’t have a bench. What they have is a couple of over-the-hill, aging, former major leaguers who don’t want to go through the rigors of the game. And Lazio was a nobody when he was a somebody."
Tagged
Bracewell and Giuliani
election 2010
Giuliani and Partners
Politics
rick lazio
rudy giuliani
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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