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WASHINGTON (CNN) – Representatives from some of the top 2008 GOP presidential campaigns gathered in Washington, D.C. Thursday to urge the Republican National Committee to lock in a 2012 primary calendar as early as possible to avoid the confusion that dogged the early stages of last year's nomination contest. One campaign manager took his recommendations a step further and suggested ending the traditional first-in-the-nation statuses of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

An RNC panel headed by party chairman Michael Steele invited the campaigns to share their views as it considers numerous possible changes to the process the party will use to nominate a candidate to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012.

Mike DuHaime, the 2008 campaign manager for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, told the panel that the three early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina should continue to hold contests early in the process, but not necessarily as the first three contests.

"I believe there needs to be greater decision-making authority given to states beyond the early states," said DuHaime, referring to Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. "If you win two out of three states, those have been our nominees. With that, 47 other states don't have the same say."

"I think that is ultimately not in the best interests of the party," he added.

DuHaime went on to say that the early phase of the nomination calendar should be more geographically and ethnically diverse and that doing so could make the party more competitive in general elections.
DuHaime's candidate did not campaign heavily in the early states and instead focused his time and energy on later contests.

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(CNN) – A new poll of New York state voters indicates Rudy Giuliani leads incumbent Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in a hypothetical Senate race.

According to a Marist College survey released Thursday afternoon, 54 percent of registered voters in New York support the former New York City mayor for Senate, with four in 10 backing Gillibrand, a Democratic congresswoman from upstate New York who was appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's former Senate seat. Gillibrand is running in 2010 to serve the final two years of Clinton's term.

The poll indicates that Giuliani would top former New York State Gov. George Pataki 71 percent to 24 percent in a hypothetical Republican Senate primary next year. In September, Pataki wouldn't say if he was interested in making a bid for the senate seat held by Gillibrand. Earlier this year, fellow Republican Rep. Peter King officially announced that he would not challenge Gillbrand next year.

According to the poll, Giuliani leads Gillibrand overwhelmingly among registered Republicans, tops her by 14 points among independents, and trails her by 26 points among registered Democrats. The survey indicates that New York City voters are divided between Giuliani and Gillibrand.

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(CNN) - A spokeswoman for Rudy Giuliani says that the former New York City mayor has not made up his mind about running for governor next year.

Maria Comella's comments were in response to report Thursday in the New York Times that Giuliani had decided not to run for New York governor in 2010, according to people who have been told of his decision.

"Rudy has a history of making up his own mind and has no problem speaking it. When Mayor Giuliani makes a decision about serving in public office, he will inform New Yorkers on his own," said Comella in a statement.

Recent polls of New York State voters indicate that Giuliani holds a wide lead over former Rep. Rick Lazio, the only Republican to have declared a gubernatorial bid, in a hypothetical 2010 GOP primary match-up.

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(CNN) – Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will headline a conference call Wednesday with national reporters to criticize the Obama administration's decision to hold Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial in New York.

The call is being organized by the Republican National Committee.

Giuliani has been very vocal, including in an interview Sunday on CNN's State of the Union with John King, about his opposition to having the trial take place in New York.

Follow Mark Preston on Twitter: @prestoncnn

(CNN) – A prominent, socially moderate Republican said Sunday that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has achieved iconic status with the Republican Party’s conservative base, is an asset to the GOP.

“I think Sarah Palin is great for the Republican Party,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said in an interview that aired on CNN’s State of the Union.

Giuliani said Palin generates a lot of enthusiasm for the party which has struggled to define itself and identify its leading voices after the McCain-Palin ticket lost its White House bid a year ago.

“She gets a tremendous reception even here in Democratic New York,” Giuliani, who hosted Palin at a New York Yankees game, told CNN’s John King.
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(CNN) – A prominent, socially moderate Republican said Sunday that former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has achieved iconic status with the Republican Party’s conservative base, is an asset to the GOP.

“I think Sarah Palin is great for the Republican Party,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said in an interview that aired on CNN’s State of the Union.

Giuliani said Palin generates a lot of enthusiasm for the party which has struggled to define itself and identify its leading voices after the McCain-Palin ticket lost its White House bid a year ago.

“She gets a tremendous reception even here in Democratic New York,” Giuliani, who hosted Palin at a New York Yankees game, told CNN’s John King.
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(CNN) – Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani strayed from the facts in discussing the discord within the Republican Party caused by the insurgent candidacy of Doug Hoffman, a Republican who chose to run on the Conservative Party ticket in the recent special election for New York’s 23rd congressional district.

Talking about the Bill Owens, the Democrat who won the special election, Giuliani erroneously said Owens had voted against the Democratically sponsored health care reform bill that recently passed in the House of Representatives.
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(CNN) – The man who ran New York City on September 11, 2001 is slamming a recently announced decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to hold criminal trials in civilian court for five men suspected of conspiring to carry out the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Instead of bringing suspected mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects to Manhattan federal court, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani says military tribunals are better suited to try those accused of terrorism.

“A military tribunal is certainly fair,” Giuliani said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, “it’s a great example to the rest of the world. The tradition for over 150 years has been to use those military tribunals.”

Giuliani said that law enforcement officials had made a mistake in using civilian federal court to try those accused of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

“To treat the 1993 bombing as if it were just a criminal act – just one of the 1,973 murders in the city of New York that year – was a big mistake. So, basically the Obama administration is repeating the mistake of history. . . . It should’ve been treated as an act of war.

“And it’s part of a bigger picture here,” Giuliani told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King, “it’s part of Barack Obama deciding that we’re not at war with terrorism any longer. So this is not treated as if it was an act of war which is what it should be treated like.”
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WASHINGTON (CNN) – As one of only two statewide campaigns in the 2009 election cycle, the Virginia governor's race has seen a parade of national political stars make the trip to the Old Dominion.

Late Friday, Creigh Deeds' campaign announced that President Obama would join the Democratic candidate on the trail at the end of the month. Obama's 2008 presidential rival will get there first: On Saturday, Sen. John McCain will make his second trip to Virginia on behalf of Republican candidate Bob McDonnell. McCain, a decorated Navy hero, will help McDonnell make a closing pitch to veterans at a rally in Hampton Roads, a region of the state with a heavy military population.

McCain isn't the only high-profile Republican who has stumped for the former Virginia Attorney General: Two other former presidential candidates - former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee - have twice visited the state twice to campaign. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani also raised money for McDonnell.

Along with Romney and Huckabee, McDonnell has welcomed a number of top Republicans who may run for president in 2012. That list includes Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association. Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele campaigned with McDonnell in May.

Creigh Deeds, who spent the first half of the year in a three-way fight for the Democratic nomination, hasn't had an army of national figures campaign with him. But several prominent Democrats have chipped in to help.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) - Rudy Giuliani will support former eBay CEO Meg Whitman's California gubernatorial bid, her campaign announced Wednesday.

Giuliani, a former Republican presidential candidate who is mulling his own run for governor in New York, called Whitman "simply the best person to lead our country's largest state."

"Meg's disciplined focus on creating jobs, cutting wasteful spending and improving education is the right course for California," Giuliani said in a statement. "I also believe that Meg Whitman can help reenergize the grassroots of the Republican Party."

The current California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is term-limited. Whitman will face State Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and former Rep. Tom Campbell in the 2010 Republican primary.

NEW YORK (CNN) – This time, Rick Lazio isn't deferring to Rudy Giuliani.

The former Republican congressman from Long Island is expected Tuesday morning to formally announce that he's running for governor of New York. The announcement, scheduled to take place in Albany, New York, comes as former New York City mayor and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani contemplates his own bid for the governor's office. Giuliani has said he will decide on a run later this year.

It was a different story in the 2000 campaign, when Lazio deferred to Giuliani in the race to take on then-First Lady Hillary Clinton for an open U.S. Senate seat in New York. Lazio held back as Giuliani declared his candidacy. When Giuliani dropped out of the race five months before Election Day, Lazio stepped in as his replacement, losing to Clinton in by 12 points.

Most recent polls of Republican voters in New York suggest Giuliani would trounce Lazio in a hypothetical GOP primary matchup. Those same surveys indicate Lazio and New York Gov. David Paterson are deadlocked in a hypothetical general election matchup.

(CNN) – With rumors flying that Rudy Giuliani might make a run at Kirsten Gillbrand's Senate seat next year, the New York Democrat's campaign isn't wasting a chance to raise some cash off the polarizing former mayor.

Just hours after the New York Post reported that Giuliani is being urged by state Republicans to enter the Senate race, Gillibrand's finance director Russ Offinger fired off an e-mail to supporters on Monday asking them to open their wallets to help fend off "one of the biggest attack dogs" in the GOP.

"From day one of her appointment to replace Hillary Clinton, Republicans have set their eyes on this seat," Offinger said in the e-mail. "Now they are prepared to run one of the biggest attack dogs in the Republican Party against Kirsten. "

Calling Gillibrand "a leading progressive voice in the Senate," the note urges readers to click on a link to donate to the campaign.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Former Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that President Obama's presidency so far has been "much worse" and "much further to the left" than he had initially expected.

Specifically going after the stimulus plan, the former New York City mayor said most of the money "has been spent for political priorities." He also criticized Obama for bailing out General Motors, saying that in his "worst fears of the Obama administration," he never thought the president would "nationalize" the auto industry.

"It was a massive, unprecedented kind of Christmas tree of Democratic programs that were being supported," Giuliani said in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room. "It was a spending at a level at which I've never seen before. I think what he has added to the debt is catastrophic. I think it will create enormous burdens for our children. And I think it creates the real risk of inflation."

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(CNN) - Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani tells CNN that he's thinking about running for governor of New York next year, but that's as far as he's going right now.

Asked by CNN's John Roberts on American Morning if he's seriously considering a gubernatorial bid, Giuliani said "I'm thinking about it but I don't know if I'm at the point of seriously considering it. It's a little too early."

Giuliani, who spent much of 2007 and the first month of 2008 running for the Republican presidential nomination, is often mentioned as a possible contender to take on incumbent Democratic Gov. David Paterson in next year's contest.

Recent polls of New York State voters indicate that if the election where held today, Giuliani would beat the unpopular Paterson. But surveys also suggest if New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo were the Democratic nominee, Cuomo would beat Giuliani in a hypothetical general election match up.
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(CNN) - Rudy Giuliani fueled speculation Wednesday he is considering a run for governor with a high-profile op-ed in the New York Times, but the former mayor told reporters he hasn't decided one way or another on a potential run just yet.

In a conference call Wednesday morning, Giuliani denied the op-ed - in which he proposes a series of measures to fix the state's gridlocked government - was meant to be a signal he is actively interested in running for governor in 2010.

"I know how to send signals, if I wanted to I would do it." Giuliani said. "I am not leaning [in either direction]."

In the op-ed, which Giuliani says is "not a partisan criticism," the former Republican presidential candidate calls for a statewide constitutional convention to institute a series of reforms, including changes in the budgeting process, term-limits for law makers, and campaign finance reform.

Two polls out this week show Giuliani would easily top current New York Gov. David Paterson in an election match-up, but would face a considerably more challenging bid against the state's attorney general, Andrew Cuomo.

Giuliani largely withheld criticizing Paterson directly Wednesday. "There is enough blame for all to share," he said.

(CNN) – Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said Monday that President Obama emboldened terrorists and looked like a pushover in his recent videotaped remarks to the people of Iran.

"Sending a videotaped message into Iran and the language and tone of that message, in my view, is the kind of thing terrorists look at and say 'we can take advantage, we can push,'" Giuliani said on MSNBC.

"I think it was a mistake. It needed balancing language about his recognition of the complete lack of freedom within Iran, even as a strong message to the Iranian people," he said of the White House video, which was posted online last month. "You get one chance to talk to the people of Iran. They're watching. You want to create a reformist element in Iran and you don't speak to that?"

"This is why terrorist would say, 'we can take advantage of a guy like that,'" he said.

Giuliani argued that because Obama failed to call out the Iranian government directly on matters such as human rights violations and the oppression of women, Iranian reformers probably became disheartened. "I think it turns off the reformers when they listen to a one-sided messages and they dont hear very strong language about what's going in their country," he said.

"He didn't talk about any of the things we need from them," Giuliani said of the president. "He is talking to a dictatorship. He is not talking to a liberal democracy. If you listen to that, you would think he was talking to a liberal democracy."

(CNN) - More bad news for New York Gov. David Paterson: in a new poll, the governor's approval rating plummeted 20 points in a month.

Just 26 percent of the state’s registered voters questioned in a Marist poll released Tuesday say they approve of Paterson’s job performance - the lowest approval rating a New York state governor has received in the poll’s 30-year history, and a sharp decline from the governor’s January showing.

Fifty-three percent of those polled said they would vote for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani if the 2010 vote for governor were held today, while 38 percent said they would back Paterson.

Paterson is losing ground against the former Republican presidential candidate – the two were in a statistical standoff in January's poll, and in November's poll the governor maintained a 51 percent to 41 percent lead.

The sitting governor does fare better than former congressman Rick Lazio. Forty-seven percent would support Paterson in a run against Lazio, while 35 percent would back the congressman. Eighteen percent are undecided.

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(CNN) – New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie picked up the support of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday, one more sign that the GOP establishment is coalescing around the former U.S. attorney as he hopes to unseat Democrat John Corzine.

Though Christie isn’t the only man running for the Republican nomination, he’s quickly cemented his status as the frontrunner since entering the race earlier this month, and has picked up the backing of hundreds of Republican state officials. Last week, he secured the endorsement of New Jersey’s former governor Tom Kean.

With Corzine looking vulnerable - he trailed Christie by six points in a recent Quinnipiac poll - prominent national Republicans like Giuliani are expected to lend their star power to the race.

Giuliani said his fellow former prosecutor is “a decisive leader who knows how to make the tough decisions.” He also praised Christie’s commitment to urban revitalization, a central plank of his gubernatorial bid.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) – Rudy Giuliani is remaining coy on the prospect of a 2010 run against New York Gov. David Paterson.

"It's too early," the former New York City mayor said on CNN's American Morning Tuesday. "The governor has a big job. He doesn't need a two-year election campaign. I think he should be given every opportunity to do the very best he can for the state, and then we can see about it six months from now, eight months from now."

Two months ago, in an interview on CNN, Giuliani said he wasn't ruling out a bid in 2010 for governor of the Empire State.

A poll of New York State voters conducted by Sienna College in November suggested that Paterson would top Giuliani by 6 points in a hypothetical head-to-head match up in 2010.

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(CNN) – Add Rudy Giuliani to the list of big name surrogates who are making campaign cameos in the last remaining Senate election this year.

The former New York Mayor and Republican presidential candidate teams up today with Saxby Chambliss at campaign events in Woodstock, Georgia.

Chambliss is the freshman Republican senator from Georgia who is fighting to keep his seat. He faces a runoff election next Tuesday against Jim Martin, a former Georgia state lawmaker.

Chambliss won a plurality of the vote on Election Day three weeks ago, but Georgia state law calls for the winner to grab 50 percent plus one vote. Due to the inclusion of a third-party candidate, Chambliss fell just shy of that threshold, forcing a runoff.

Giuliani is the latest former GOP presidential candidate to stump with Chambliss. Sen. John McCain campaigned with Chambliss just nine days after losing the presidential election to Barack Obama. Nine days ago, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who ran for the Republican nomination before dropping out in March and backing McCain, campaigned with Chambliss. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney teamed up with Chambliss on Friday. Romney ended his presidential bid in February and backed McCain.

Giuliani dropped out of the Republican presidential race in late January and immediately endorsed McCain. Giuliani, Huckabee and Romney could all make another stab at presidential politics in 2012.

Martin is also getting some major-league help. Last week former President Bill Clinton campaigned with Martin in Atlanta and Sunday former Vice President Al Gore teamed up with Martin.

Do these big name surrogates make a difference?

"Generally they can help boost turnout, because of all the media attention. Turnout in a runoff election is often very low compared to a presidential election and each side needs to get as many of their voters to the polls as possible," says CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.

Democrats have so far picked up seven Senate seats in this year's election, with the Republican seats in Georgia and Minnesota still undecided. In Minnesota, freshman GOP Sen. Norm Coleman topped his Democratic challenger, Al Franken, by just 215 votes, triggering an automatic recount which will extend into December.

If Democrats take both remaining contests, they'll reach their pre-election goal of controlling 60 Senate seats, which would be a filibuster-proof majority. A filibuster is a move by the minority party in the Senate that basically brings the chamber to a standstill by blocking votes on legislation.