Rudy Giuliani photo

Remarks Following the New Hampshire Primary

January 08, 2008

First of all, I want to thank all of you for your tremendous support, your tremendous help, your assistance, all of the advice, all of the time that we spent together, and all of your work on this campaign. I'd like to thank you particularly, Governor Cellucci, who has been a stalwart for us in New Hampshire and all around the country.

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Former Congressman Bill Zeliff.

Thank you very much, Bill, for all of your help.

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And our New Hampshire leadership team -- Lou Copponi, the president of the New Hampshire State Troopers Association...

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General Joseph Simeone, who is the state chairman of our veterans coalition.

Thank you, General.

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Tom Cisco (ph), our finance chairman.

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Doug Stannon (ph), the former speaker of the House and our state co-chairman.

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Representative Stephen Stepanek, the state co-chairman.

Thank you, Steve.

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Your great mayor, Mayor Frank Guinta.

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See? Mayors are always the most popular when they're doing a good job, right? When they're not -- well, another great former mayor and state co-chairman, New Hampshire Executive Councilor Ray Wieczorek.

Ray, thank you very much.

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And our state chairman Wayne Semprini.

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I'd also like to thank former state treasurer of Massachusetts, Joe Malone, who did a lot to help us and assist is all throughout this campaign.

And again, thank all of you. You've been absolutely terrific at each one of our visits, each one of our town halls, each one of our stops. You've done everything we've asked, and I thank you very much.

First of all...

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you!

(APPLAUSE)

GIULIANI: Well, the other way around.

First of all, I congratulate the winners of tonight's primary. I don't think it's been officially called, but later tonight on the way to the airport, I'm sure it will be called, and I'll make a call to the winner and congratulate him.

I can't call the winner. I'll have to leave that to the networks to call the winner, but sometimes they do it early, sometimes they do it late, but you can be sure when they do, I will call and congratulate them.

We've got a lot of work to do. We've got a lot of work to do. We've got a lot of work that lies ahead. This is just the beginning. This is just the beginning.

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Think of it as the kickoff. This is the kickoff in what's going to be a very long and very tough game, but one that we're going to come out, and by the time it's over with -- by February 5th -- it's going to be clear that we're going to be the nominee of the party.

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Great things to come. We've learned a lot. We've learned a lot. We've made a lot of good friends here. That's going to bode well for us in November when we have to win this state, and it's going to be bode well for us, because we're going to leave in a few minutes for Florida to fight it out there, and I want you to come and join us there and help us in Florida and help us in the other states. Help is in Connecticut. Help us in New York. Help us in New Jersey. Maybe some of you can come and help us in California.

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We've got a lot of places in which to carry on this fight, and we're going to prevail. And we're going to continue our fight. Our journey has just begun. It's now going to take us through Florida, where we're going to take off for in a few minutes so we get an early start.

But we're going to continue to fight for lower taxes. And we're going to continue to fight for less government spending. And we're going to continue to fight for access to private health care. Our campaign is a fight for our 12 commitments -- 12 commitments that we made right here originally with all of you in New Hampshire.

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Twelve commitments to be on offense in the terrorist war against us. Twelve commitments to appoint strict constructionist judges. Twelve commitments to make our government more accountable and to get Washington working again in the right way for the people.

Twelve commitments to uplift the spirit of the American people so that the children that are here can dream great dreams and can accomplish great dreams in an America that relies not on a big, overblown central government, but an America that relies on its people -- people who have more choice about education, people who have more choice about health care, people who have more choice about their pensions, and people who have a little bit more money in their pocket to spend, rather than just having government take your money from you.

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So tomorrow we'll get started right away, and we will unveil a tax reform and tax cutting plan that stimulates our economy in a way that maybe it hasn't been stimulated before -- something that is very necessary, something that's very needed, a major tax reform and major readjustment of taxes in order to stimulate growth in our economy.

That'll be the beginning of a whole group of proposals that we make all throughout the next two and three weeks.

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So again, I can't thank the people of New Hampshire enough. You've been terrific. These town hall meetings have been exciting. I've learned a tremendous amount from them. We will take away from it a lot of good ideas that we can carry forward in Florida, that we can carry forward in all the rest of the states that are coming up.

And maybe, just maybe, we actually will be able to say that the groundwork that we laid here is the groundwork that's going to bring us not just to the nomination, but to the presidency, because what this is all about, what this is all about is making a better life for ourselves, for our families, for the future.

It's about making a better America. That's why all these people who run for president do it. That's why I'm doing it. I believe I am tested by having handled major crises in the past, having handled big problems in the past, getting results in the past. I think I'm ready.

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This race -- I don't know the result yet tonight, but what I can tell you is this race is a wide-open race. It is a wide-open race. There's going to be a lot more ups and downs to it. And one thing we can handle is ups and downs. We are very good at that. That's what it means to handle crisis. That's what it means to handle problems. And maybe we've lulled our opponents into a false sense of confidence now, right?

(LAUGHTER)

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We were prepared for this from the very beginning. It fits into how we looked at this from the very beginning about there being at least 29 primaries and caucuses between January 3rd and February 5th, and now we're off to the next group of them with renewed vigor, renewed spirit, and some great new proposals about how to make America safer, how to make America stronger, how to make America more prosperous.

Again, my congratulations to the winners. My congratulations to you for your tremendous commitment to making America an even better country, because this first in the nation primary in New Hampshire is all about -- I know we talk about politics, but it's all about making a better country, and you're accomplishing that.

Thank you, God bless you and God bless America.

(APPLAUSE)

Rudy Giuliani, Remarks Following the New Hampshire Primary Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/276841

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