Giuliani Defends His Absence From Iowa

CLIVE, Iowa, Dec. 29, 2007— -- In his final campaign swing through Iowa, a state where he's barely competing, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Iowans should not be offended by his lack of attention to the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

"What I say to the people of Iowa is that we're running a campaign in 20 states or 29 states, or however many there are between the 3rd (of January) and the 5th (of February)," Giuliani said after speaking to his supporters in his small campaign headquarters west of Des Moines. "If you look at my schedule, I think I've probably campaigned as much or more than anyone but I've done it proportionately throughout the country. I probably have the most appearances in California and the most appearances in Florida."

But Iowans, it was pointed out, like to have disproportionate attention.

"That is all well and good when you have one primary then a large amount time to the next primary and it all goes out over a three- or four-month period," Giuliani said. "But when you're looking at a one-month period with 29 primaries, nobody is going to win all of them, so the question is who can win the most of them?"

Giuliani's strategy has long been to focus on winning larger states such as Florida, which holds its contest at the end of January, and the Super Duper Tuesday states like New York, Illinois, and California, which hold primaries on Feb. 5.

Giuliani made his remarks in an interview with ABC News, excerpts of which aired on "World News" on Saturday. More will air Sunday on "Good Morning America."

Giuliani's first national television ad was launched Friday, also airing in New Hampshire and Florida. Dealing with the subject of terrorism, the ad began running one day after the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

"Obviously that decision was made before we knew about the terrible events in Pakistan and it was not intended at all to coincide with that," Giuliani said.

The reason his first ad discussed that subject, he said, was because his campaign's top commitment to voters "is to keep America on the offense and the terrorists' war against us. That is the No. 1 overwriting commitment that I make to the American people and it's the one that I think the next president of the United States is going to have to focus on the most."

Giuliani refrained from controversies involving the foreign policy credentials of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the GOP frontrunner in Iowa who has raised eyebrows by not apparently knowing that Pakistan had lifted martial law, and for questionably claiming that there has been an influx of undocumented Pakistanis illegally crossing the Mexico-U.S. border.

"My feeling is that I'm the best qualified," he said, saying he begs off criticizing Republican candidates unless they attack him first.

About the fact that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney made political history this week by launching two different attack TV ads against two different candidates in two different states, Giuliani said he thought it was the wrong approach.

"I think voters want to hear us get above all that. … I think the negative stuff, particularly at this stage in the campaign doesn't really appeal to most voters," he said. "I think what they're looking for is, 'OK, What can you do? What do you stand for? What have you accomplished in the past?'"

Of his recent health scare -- and criticism that he didn't divulge enough information about what tests had been conducted on him -- Giuliani insisted that his "doctor put out everything, he put out the results of all the tests."

When it was pointed out to him that his doctor didn't release the actual records of the tests but rather a statement issued by his campaign listing the tests and declaring them all to be normal, Giuliani said "the record is just a number." What the campaign issued, he said, indicates that "a lot of different tests were given and they all came back, that I'm perfectly normal."

Giuliani said he would "do a complete physical if I'm the nominee or as we get closer, when we get some time. Right now we literally don't have the time to do it, but we'll complete all the other things that are a part of a physical."

Giuliani was also asked about controversial work he and his business, Giuliani Partners, had done on behalf of the maker of the pharmaceutical OxyContin, whose executives pleaded guilty in a case involving whether the company had sufficiently disclosed the addictive nature of the drug.

"I thought I played a useful role in the security work and even the legal work that we did," Giuliani said. "And there is a overwhelmingly positive reason for that medicine and it particularly meant something for me after gone through cancer. It's medicine that allows people to function who might not be able to function who are in serious, serious pain. And the overwhelming majority of use for that medicine is both valid and necessary. So you want to be able to preserve that and wipe out the misuses, or minimize the misuses as much as possible."

He added that the work had been conducted "according to the highest ethical standards."