Giuliani Warns Hillary Could Defeat Bush in 2004

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani had some words of warning for Republicans on Monday: Pay no attention to Hillary Clinton's denials that she won't seek the White House in 2004.

In fact, the man known since 9/11 as America's Mayor said the GOP had better be prepared to take her on, or else run the risk of repeating the same errors that allowed Bill Clinton to become president in 1992.

"I think Republicans have to take the threat of Hillary running seriously," Giuliani told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity. "From the point of view of those who look at the world the way we [Republicans] do, [she] has to be rated as somebody we've got to worry about."

The man who squared off against Sen. Clinton for part of the 2000 Senate race - and who got an up close and personal view of Hillary's scorched-earth campaign tactics - counseled: "Anything can happen. We can't make the same mistake we made in 1992 - and look what happened to the country for eight years."

Asked if Sen. Clinton has enough national support to be elected president, Giuliani told Hannity: "I think you have to look at it this way, being realistic. Anybody that gets nominated could conceivably get elected. The toughest thing is getting nominated."

"It's very, very hard to get to the point of being the Republican candidate or the Democratic candidate," he explained. "Look at all these Democrats that are killing each other to get there."

"Once you get there, even if you begin 30 points behind, something goes wrong and you're the next president," the ex-mayor said.

Giuliani said that "right now, if she decided to run, unless something drastically went wrong, she'd be nominated. She's going to beat Dean and she's going to beat Clark and she's going to beat all of them."

And while he still thinks Mrs. Clinton would probably lose to President Bush, he reminded that in politics, there are no guarantees. "How do I know what's going to happen between now and then?" he told Hannity.

Is Bush's political team listening to Giuliani's warnings? Apparently, they are. In the next breath the ex-mayor revealed that he attended game two of the World Series Sunday night with senior Bush political adviser Karl Rove.

Editor's note:
Hillary has a bold plan to capture the White House – Click Here Now

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
2004 Elections
Sen. Hillary Clinton