Rudy Giuliani, After Florida Primary Defeat, Begs Rivals For Some Punishment

Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Florida, January 31, 2008 -- One-time Republican presidential frontrunner and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani issued a heartfelt and occasionally tear-filled appeal to leading Republican candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney for “a little bit of freaking attention” following his unimpressive 13% showing in yesterday's Republican primary election in Florida.

Mr. Giuliani, who banked his presidential race on a strong showing in Florida, which is inhabited primarily by aging New Yorkers who fled the once-vibrant city during Mayor Rudy Giuliani's inauspicious incumbency, said his flagging campaign needs “just a little bitty boost from my sworn enemies to help keep me going.”

“Come on, you losers,” Mr. Giuliani shouted, speaking before a crowd of three deaf alligators and one Fox News cameraman at a post-primary defeat rally in the Okefenokee swamp in Western Florida. “I've been hitting you with everything I've got. You can at least have the common decency to hit back and get my damn name on the airwaves.”

“What are you, anyway—chicken?” the self-styled “America's Bail Bondsman” challenged, causing the three alligators, each accomplished lip-readers, to perk up noticeably.

According to sources close to the Rudy Giuliani campaign, the former New York City mayor, who was largely responsible for the unprecedented preparedness and interoperability failures that magnified the disaster of the 9/11 terror attacks, is running low on funds and has become dependent on being singled out in attack ads in order to sustain his diminishing name-recognition factor.

Following Mr. Giuliani's humiliating Florida primary election results, his campaign, in the words of Rudy for President Florida campaign director Mugsy Pugsy, “stinks worse than a midtown OTB”.

The McCain and Romney campaigns, however, seem disinclined to take the bait, preferring to spend millions of dollars every day attacking each other.

“I'm sorry, Rudy who?” Governor Mitt Romney, formerly a close personal friend of Mr. Giuliani, asked, adding, “who, who-who?”

A spokesman for the John McCain campaign feigned hearing loss in lieu of responding, saying, “Sorry, sonny-boy, my ears ain't what they used to be.”

“It is, quite frankly, insulting,” said a senior advisor to the Rudy Giuliani campaign who begged not to be identified as he has already sent a resume to John McCain. “Do they think we're not worthy of the battle? Are we not men? Are we libertarian fringe crackpots like Ron Paul, or upstanding visionaries like Dennis Kucinich who are simply ahead of our time? I should think not. We demand equal time and equal abuse in accordance with both the tenets of modern election law and common human indecency, and, if necessary, we'll sue in a court of law to get it.”

Dr. Melvin Kirschbaum, an election law specialist at New York University, said, “That sounds like a stretch.”

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Elections Analyst