Rev. Al Sharpton said if Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination for president in 2008, he will travel the country attacking the former New York City mayor’s image as a 9/11 hero.
"I get up at 5:30 every morning, work out. I put Giuliani’s picture on my treadmill,” Sharpton told the New York Daily News. "I’m getting in shape to go on the road if he’s the Republican nominee.”
Sharpton earlier flexed his muscles attacking Don Imus for his on-air comment about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team, and observers believe Sharpton’s criticism likely played a major role in CBS’s decision to fire the talk show host.
Sharpton often castigated Giuliani during his eight years as mayor, accusing him of insensitivity to New York’s black community.
Now he vows to travel the country, hitting crucial swing states such as Florida and Ohio, to tell "the story of the Rudy we know,” he told the Daily News.
"This is not only the race question, but a leadership, character question. Much of America knows Rudy Giuliani from 9/11. They need to know him from 9/10 – how he polarized the biggest city in the world and how he ran it like a fiefdom.”
But Sharpton’s opposition to Giuliani could wind up increasing support for the candidate, according to Doug Muzzio, a professor of public affairs at Baruch College in New York.
"Clearly, he’s going to stimulate a reaction,” he told the News. "The question is, does it help more than it hurts?”
Sharpton was able to get away with that nonsense in NY because Imus tried to kiss up to him and gave him credibility he shouldn't have had. Nationally, however, Sharpton is considered to be a clown and if he wants to try and convince America that Rudy is a bad guy, have at it. His opposition will only bolster Rudy's support in most of the country.
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