But will Giuliani’s dismal fourth-place finish and his seemingly scant interest in a state where voters like to meet their candidates have lasting effects? For Fergus Cullen, the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party in 2008, the answer is a resounding yes.
“It’s hard to not emphasize enough how bad a campaign Rudy Giuliani waged in New Hampshire four years ago and it’s hard for me to see him recovering from that,” Cullen said. “I must have met Rudy Giuliani five or six times during the time and it was always the first time from Rudy Giuliani’s perspective… what it told me was there was no effort made at all to get to know even the key players in the state.”
Cullen said that at the moment he is undecided—as chairman, he remained neutral last time around—but he will not be endorsing Giuliani.
“On the strengths that he didn’t earn a second chance,” Cullen said, adding that he thought John McCain and Mitt Romney deserve another chance. “I think had he actually come to New Hampshire and said, ‘I’m the electable moderate,’ he would have done better last time… it was such a bad date last time, you don’t get a second chance.”
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