This piece credits Rudy Giuliani's spectacular fall to rank-and-file GOPers gradually discovering his liberal social issues, multiple marriages, etc., and using constant (indeed parodical) invocations of 9/11 to cover these things up instead of merely having a bad strategy. It's reasonably persuasive. I personally think that, while these things were certainly a disadvantage for Rudy, it seemed as if, on those issues, he got a free pass from the media and the other candidates. In any event, the New Hampshire GOP is fairly liberal, as far as these things go, and I doubt it would have been a deal-breaker there. I also agree that strategy isn't the issue, as Giuliani was initially pursuing the same strategy as the other candidates. That failed.
As it turned out, his "hero" status and celebrity and "leadership" were effectively cancelled out by no small portion of rampant buffoonery. One is reminded of the old Public Enemy song "911 is a Joke" (referring to the emergency number, it ought to be known), and by falling back on it so often, Rudy diminished its importance, as people began to think that was all he was running on, which wasn't too far from the truth. This led to a devastating joke from Joe Biden, of all people. He turned himself into a joke, and while he tried to emphasize his stewardship of NYC before 9/11, he never committed to that strategy. It could have been a winning strategy, who knows, but Mitt Romney has recently managed to scratch out quite a bit of success with it among people who thought his religious right conversion was horseshit. Giuliani would have had an equal claim to the "change" mantle, but instead he wanted to parlay his 9/11 status into some kind of "terrorist-slayer" narrative, which was awfully thin. Being attacked by terrorist makes you no more an expert on terrorism than being mugged makes you an expert on neoconservatism.
So, in essence, Rudy ignored the strong areas of his resume: reform, disaster management, and turnaround expertise (which are all really popular messages) in favor of a dubious connection between being attacked on 9/11 and thus being a terrorist expert. But what really hit him hard was that he was seen, early on, as the only candidate who could beat Hillary Clinton, and Republicans were able to put up with his defections on various issues to keep Mrs. Clinton out of office. As Barack Obama began to become a more creditable challenger, however, Giuliani's stock began to drop. But then he amazingly triangulated rightward and tried to become the most right-wing candidate of the bunch in almost every area, despite a history and record that had him as anything but. No wonder nobody can make heads nor tails of his campaign. It just doesn't make much sense, which might be why he's become such a laughingstock.
