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Hindsight is always perfect. If Rudy had run a better campaign, he might have been able to make the general public ignore/be ignorant of his many problems. He also might have done better had he started sooner and not gambled it all on Florida. This thought frightens me, but it's possible.
I don't think Hillary's win in Florida proves anything either way. And I'm not so sure the right wants her out. They might have a very good time fomenting a campaign to beat her.
I am also far less trustful than you of "the people's" ability or will to ignore media messages and research candidates on their own. Most of them are probably too busy and too mistrustful of politics in general to bother. They may use their "gut instinct," but they may use it to choose who they think is the best candidate based on sheer image alone.
It's scary to think it, but perhaps if Rudy had done a better job of peddling his "hero of 9/11" image and not gone about it in such a hamhanded way as he did, he might have found far more traction with the public. I can think of at least two people I know of in Ohio who were taken in by the idea that he was some kind of strong, capable leader because of it. They didn't live in New York or have any idea what he was like or what New Yorkers thought of him. Yes, I know the plural of "anecdote" is not "data," but who's to say there were not many more across the country whose minds could also have been turned in the same direction?
I mean, who in early 2004 would've dreamed that John Kerry, simply because of a small band of nasty men, could be made to look like LESS of a war hero than George W. Bush? Defies all logic, right?
You can serve some people shit and make them think it's pate. Rudy just didn't go about it right.
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