Rudy Giuliani calls time after Florida primary failure
Thursday, 31 Jan 2008 07:53
Rudy Giuliani has pulled out of the Republican race
Rudy Giuliani, the man who was the focus of American grieving in the aftermath of September 11th, has ended his quest to be president.
The former mayor of New York has decided to pull out of the race to be the Republican candidate to succeed George Bush after a disastrous performance in the Florida primaries.
Mr Giuliani had risked everything by concentrating all his campaigning efforts on the sunshine state, at the expense of smaller regions such as Iowa and New Hampshire.
But the policy went spectacularly wrong when he lost what had been a big lead in opinion polls in Florida to see his rival John McCain win.
And following that failure Mr Giuliani made the decision to step aside and back Arizona senator Mr McCain, who he called an "American hero".
"Today I am officially announcing my withdrawal as candidate for the president of the United States," Mr Giuliani confirmed.
"And so deciding who to endorse in my particular case is not difficult because if I endorsed anyone else, you would say I was flip-flopping after already having endorsed John."
He added: "Mr McCain is an American hero, and America could use a hero in the White House."
Mr McCain is a former fighter pilot who sustained injuries while fighting in Vietnam, an arena where he claims to have developed his Republican ideas.
He will now go forward to 'super Tuesday', where he will compete with the remaining candidates Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul as 20 states go to the polls to pick Republican and Democrat candidates.
The governor of California, arguably the pivotal state, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is expected to put his weight behind Mr McCain's bid today.
Earlier, John Edwards left the Democrat race, leaving Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama as the two frontrunners in that contest.