Giuliani's New Push
While Giuliani was fundraising at private events in Texas today, his campaign is planning a sort of re-launch to boost the mayor's numbers.
He's lagging now in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, so Giuliani returns to Florida tomorrow to give what his campaign is calling "key speeches" on why he wants to become president and what he sees as the future under his presidency.
The two big topics he'll discuss will be national security and fiscal conservatism, which he discusses at nearly every campaign stop, but his campaign is doing all they can to attract attention and hype the mayor as the race to Iowa and New Hampshire's date looms ahead. The Washington Post reports that the tagline of the speech will be "Tested. Ready. Now."
Next week, it's New Hampshire – Giuliani hits the area Monday and returns on Friday.
In other news, Mitt Romney's campaign has been distributing links to a YouTube clip of Rudy Giuliani making statements on illegal immigrants that they say "contradict" his current message.
The poor-quality clip comes from Giuliani's radio show, "Live From City Hall," which he hosted while mayor of New York City.
In the clip, Giuliani says "The city of New York, quite frankly, is quite tolerant of undocumented immigration and this shouldn't surprise you because I've been the Mayor for a long time and outspoken on this issue, even nationally, I happen to agree with that."
The comments, according to the Romney campaign, were made four days before September 11th, 2001.
Responding to the Romney campaign's pushing of the old clip, Giuliani spokesperson Maria Comella told CBS News, "Wake us up when Mitt Romney has something new to offer besides attacks on his Republican colleagues in an effort to distract voters from his lackluster record."
This is not the first time Romney campaign members have provided the media with links to unflattering Giuliani clips. Back in September, shortly after Giuliani answered a cell phone call from his wife at an NRA event, the Romney folks e-mailed a link to Giuliani doing the same thing at an event in Florida.
Giuliani now says that the United States should end illegal immigration, and argues that his views on illegal immigrants changed when he saw technology that could keep them from coming over the border.
Giuliani has said he approves for the estimated 12 to 15 million illegal immigrants living in the United States to remain here as long as they had a "tamper-proof ID card," pay taxes, and do not have a criminal record. He says that ones who did not follow those rules would be deported.