Kind of fitting, on a day that we should be talking about Rudolph Giuliani’s departure from the 2008 presidential race, we’re instead discussing a far more significant departure.  Even in concession, Rudy can’t catch a break.  Reid offers us a post-mortem on the mayor’s campaign:

A campaign can’t survive without oxygen, future presidential consultants and managers would do well to note, and Giuliani’s strategy of skipping early contests was the first sign of the campaign’s impending doom. As Romney, Clinton and Obama discovered, even a loss can keep you in the news and at the front of the pack. If Giuliani had competed and won in Iowa and New Hampshire, he would have run away with the nomination. Had he competed and lost, he would have at least been able to finish ahead of Ron Paul and Fred Thompson, and he could have built momentum instead of hoping to stay afloat long enough to survive. As he drops out of the race, Giuliani trails even Paul in delegates accumulated.

I have been repeatedly flabbergasted by the Giuliani campaign’s lack of imagination.  Campaigns need oxygen defines the mayor’s failures perfectly.  In snubbing Iowa and New Hampshire, you must realize that you aren’t simply ignoring voters in those early states.  You’re snubbing the national press, which needs to feed off of these early momentum-builders to write their narratives and create their stories.  If you don’t compete there, you get no ink.  It’s that simple.      

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