GIULIANI’S SUPER SMART STAFFERS SOMEHOW COUGH UP ‘08 BLUEPRINT

FITSNews – January 3, 2007 - America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani apparently needs a little more practice before he is ready to handle our nuclear secrets.

We keep hearing how brilliant his staff is, but somehow Giuliani’s super secret 2008 strategy memo wound up on the front cover of yesterday morning’s New York Daily News.

Predictably, it was all over tarnation within hours.

So much for a high-profile, meticulously PR-themed announcement complete with snazzy banners, 9/11 tribute videos and balloons (maybe even balloon animals).

Listen Team Rudy, all your man really needs to do is go down to Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan and say “I’m running.” That would easily be the greatest Presidential announcement of all time.

Well, unless of course New York Gov. George Pataki somehow got the idea first and went there before Rudy to announce his candidacy, in which case it would probably not be a good idea for Rudy to do the same thing.

Anyway, according to the leaked memo Rudy is supposed to raise $100 million in 2007, and while he’s doing that, play down things like the fact he’s been married three times or is – heaven forbid – a liberal on social issues.

We’re not sure how brilliant any of that advice is, but whatever.

Rudy’s spokeswoman, Sunny Mindel, had the right idea for handling the situation initially, playing down the document as “just one person’s ideas.”

But that’s when spokeswoman school evidently failed to kick in.

“I wonder why such suspicious activity is occurring and can only guess it is because of Rudy’s poll numbers in New Hampshire and Iowa,” Mindel told the Daily News.

And then later to the AP, “this is clearly a dirty trick … the voters are sick and tired of this kind of thing.”

Actually Sunny, what the voters are sick and tired of is not enough balloon animals at political announcements. Everybody loves a good balloon animal.