Ross Douthat remembers the little campaign that couldn't:Rudy Giuliani's slow slide into irrelevance was vastly more predictable; indeed, it was sufficiently overdetermined that almost any explanation for why he didn't win the GOP nomination is likely to contain some element of the truth. Was it because he couldn't make peace with social conservatives? Absolutely. Was it the shadow of scandal from his years as Mayor? Almost certainly. Was it the waning political salience of 9/11? No doubt. Was it the unfavorable way the early primary schedule lined up - with no obviously Rudy-friendly states casting ballots before Florida - joined to the difficulty of making the leap from Mayor to President? Probably so.To this litany, I'd just add the following: I think the Giuliani campaign was deceived by Rudy's leap to a dramatic early lead in the national polls, and allowed his huge, seemingly-enduring edge to shape how Rudy sold himself throughout the race. The polls said that he was the front-runner, so he behaved like a front-runner, running a cautious, uncreative campaign that apart from its deviations on abortion seemed designed to be as cookie-cutter conservative as possible. Tax cuts, border security, a strong national defense, school choice, strict-constructionist judges - it was an agenda ideally-suited to an establishment candidate trying to build a lead and hold it, but Rudy, despite his boffo poll numbers early on, was never actually that candidate.Ross is right to say that, from the conservative perspective, Giuliani ran a conventional, paint-by-the-numbers campaign. From outside the tent, though, what passes for normal amongst my Republican friends is a bit unsettling. To liberals, Rudy looked like a uniquely dangerous force, surrounding himself with imperialistic maniacs refashioned into respectable advisers (Norman Podhoretz), doubling down on ever more absurd expressions of fealty to empirically laughable policies (supply-side economics), and running on a particularly dangerous cult of personality that mixed tall tales of 9/11 heroism with a quasi-authoritarian approach to leadership. That he's probably finished in politics is among the happiest outcomes of this whole campaign. That his political flaw appears to have been normalcy rather than nuttiness, however, is quite peculiar.(Image used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user Victory NH.)
