Rudy Giuliani says he will join the race for the White House if he feels no other Republican candidate can beat President Barack Obama in 2012.
In an interview with The Daily Caller, the former New York City mayor said he’s still very open to running and said a decision will be made within the next several months.
“I think there’s an obvious timeline, which would be the end of the summer,” said Giuliani, who ran for president in 2008, during the phone interview. “I got to get this decided by September.”
Asked how likely it is that he’ll ultimately join the already crowded race, Giuliani refused to say.
“That’s too much teasing,” the Republican said, “and I’m too far away from making a decision.”
Giuliani is traveling to New Hampshire this week for several events, but admitted he’s also going to “see how people are feeling, how good of chance we have of beating Obama, how the candidates are doing, so that I can also make a decision about whether I run or not.” (Pawlenty declines to sign Family Leader marriage pledge, promotes faith video)
Jack Kimball, the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, told TheDC that he’s spoken with Giuliani before about the race and plans to see him during the mayor’s Granite State trip.
“He’s just looking for the proper leadership from these candidates,” Kimball said of Giuliani’s thinking on a presidential run. “The only thing that would prompt him to run is if he didn’t see it in them.”
Giuliani, who said the field is made up of “some really accomplished people who I admire,” said it’s too early to know if he’s worried that the GOP field is lacking a formidable candidate.
“I’m not concerned yet because the campaigns haven’t really developed … So it is hard to make a judgment about that,” he said.
Patrick Griffin, a GOP consultant and senior fellow at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics, said he thinks Giuliani could “still get into this thing,”though he expressed skepticism.
“Something about this strikes me as possibly disingenuous,” Griffin said. “I don’t know if this is about promoting the Giuliani brand or if this is about seriously putting yourself forward to becoming the nominee of this party and face Obama.”
But Giuliani speaks like a candidate, saying Obama’s “policies and programs have been a disaster,” and “there’s no question he’s made our economy much worse.” (Bachmann surges in national poll, Perry makes strong debut)
“This is by far and without any doubt the worst performance of a president in dealing with our economy in our lifetime,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s anybody that would argue that they’re better than before he came into office,” Giuliani said. “I mean they’re much worse.”
He said President Obama’s health care bill is “a massive weight on our economy that is only going to get greater and it hasn’t even really been implemented yet.” And Giuliani said he “never would’ve done the stimulus program, which was a political payoff.”
“One of the biggest jokes in the world is to call that a stimulus program,” he said.
As both parties fight over a debt reduction deal during the debate in Congress over raising the debt ceiling, Giuliani said. “It would be really nice if we could bring back John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.”
“Both of them could probably preach some wisdom to both political parties,” he explained. “John F Kennedy could preach the value of tax cuts to a party that doesn’t seem to understand that, and preach major tax cuts which really worked for Kennedy.”
“And Reagan could preach the art of the possible, meaning you can’t get everything you want. Try to get 50, 60, 70, 80 percent,” he said. “That would really make Washington work a lot better.”
