It wasn't that Rudy didn't campaign hard in the early states, he did, particularly New Hampshire.
Perhaps a simpler dynamic was at work: The more that Republican voters saw of him, the less they wanted to vote for him.
His personal life:
he possessed a complicated family life: he has been thrice-married and has two adult children who rarely speak to him. At the beginning of his campaign last spring, he sat for a celebrity photo shoot smooching with his third wife, who snuggled in his lap.
As one observer says:
“Rudy didn’t even care enough about conservatives to lie to us. The problem wasn’t the calendar; it was the candidate.”
Another says:
His numbers were built on name recognition and celebrity,” this adviser said. “He had so many of his old friends around him, sometimes it was like he was running for president of Staten Island.”
His past judgment lapses likely were factors as well.
A federal prosecutor indicted his friend and former police commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik. And a report indicated that Mr. Giuliani had spent city money to visit his girlfriend, now his wife, in the Hamptons; the police also provided some security for his new love.
Then there's his ill-advised shift of campaign strategy:
By late December, Mr. Giuliani made a fateful decision. He formally abandoned plans to run hard in and perhaps win New Hampshire or Michigan. Instead, he made sporadic appearances in those states and retreated to Florida, where he would make something of a final stand. ,,,This was a deeply controversial move; no one had won an election by essentially skipping the first four or five caucuses and primaries.
And in what must be the ultimate disappointment for Rudy,
By Tuesday night, even those voters who rated terrorism as the most important issue were as likely to vote for Mr. Romney or Mr. McCain as for Mr. Giuliani. And those who had voted early for Mr. Giuliani now felt a sense of irrelevance.
Bye, Rudy.
