Rudy Giuliani

There’s quite a bit of irony in Friday’s announcement that Republican activist Lisa James of Scottsdale will be the chairwoman of Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign in Arizona.

James is perhaps best-known as the executive director of President Bush’s Arizona campaign for re-election in 2004. It was widely assumed James would work in some capacity this year for the home state candidate, John McCain, as many of Bush’s best strategists and campaign staff members went to McCain’s aid at some point after the 2004 election was over.

In fact, James was attacked early in 2007 as being too close to McCain when she was running to be the voluntary chair of the Arizona Republican Party. The man who narrowly defeated her, Randy Pullen, successfully reached out to grassroots Republicans who strongly dislike McCain’s stances on illegal immigration and on other issues that conflict with the party’s traditional platform (campaign finance regulation, gun control, tax cuts during budget deficits and global warming).

James always claimed she wasn’t a McCainiac, and now she’s proved it by going to work for Giuliani. This coup for Giuliani means McCain now faces a serious three-way split for votes in Arizona’s Feb. 5 presidential primary with the former New York City mayor and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Posted in: Presidential campaign |

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