Giuliani's 29 Inning Game

By: Ryan Corsaro
Topics: Rudy Giuliani

(CBS)

From CBS News' Ryan Corsaro:

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI -- Always in favor of baseball analogies, Giuliani says the election year is a nine inning game and primaries in February are the fifth or sixth inning.

"I see it all as 29 - correct me if I'm wrong , because they keep changing the number on me - but I think there are 29 primaries and caucuses from January 3 to February 5. So I see it as one big season, like a baseball season or a football season .That would be a lot of games for a football season," Giuliani told reporters in Kansas City, Missouri.

"A baseball game, you've got to play nine innings. And whoever gets the most runs at the end of nine innings wins. So here, you've got to play in 29 primaries. Nobody's going to win all of them. That's for sure. That would be, I think, on the Republican or Democratic side, that's never happened in contested primaries. With great candidates, they've never won every single primary."

"So, our strategy from the beginning has been, eight, nine inning game. And as soon as we realized that California was going to be a February 5 primary, we started campaigning in California, and putting a political organization in California. As soon as we realized that Illinois was going to be, we did the same thing in Illinois. Missouri, same thing in Missouri. That's the strategy.

"I call it a proportionate strategy. It means that you recognize the reality: you're not going to win all of them, you've got to win most of them, and most of them are coming on February 5, so you'd better not ignore Feburary 5."