RUDY STARTS TO MAKE HIS MOVE – AT 11:01 P.M. ET:  We've been writing about terror today, and if America has a "Mr. Anti-Terror," it's Rudy Giuliani.  It's both his credit and his curse.

Rudy has been acting more like a presidential candidate recently.  We've expressed our doubts about a possible second run by the former New York mayor and hero of 9-11, citing his poor showing in the 2008 GOP primaries, and the fact that 9-11 is now ten years past.  But national security is Rudy's credential, and he's playing the terror card.  From The Politico:

Rudy Giuliani warned that the major party national conventions are obvious terrorist targets during a stop in Charlotte on Tuesday.

The former New York mayor, who's contemplating another presidential run in 2012 and who has made national security a focus of his speeches for years, made the remarks as he spoke to a police foundation luncheon in the city that will host the Democratic National Convention next year.

According to WSCOTV.com, Giuliani said, "You want everyone to leave your city enjoying it, because the benefit to your city is people wanting to come back."

But he also raised the specter of the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, and the logistical and security factors involved, given that the city had endured the 9/11 terror attacks just three years earlier.

"The conventions will always be targets," he said. "They always are. Not only because of the presence of the president and presidential candidates, but the presence of so many significant people. It's just a place for terrorists and would-be terrorists to make a statement."

COMMENT:  There is a certain grim reality here.  Candidates often rise because they meet certain needs.  Right now, I don't think the country believes it needs a Rudy.  But if we are attacked severely between now and the 2012 conventions, Rudy's stock will rise dramatically.  That's simply the way it goes.  Whether that, and national fear, will be enough to drive him to the nomination is impossible to predict.

One of Rudy's problems, as former New York Mayor Ed Koch once said, is that he's seen as a cop, and not much more than that.  Cops are wonderful, but you don't elect them to solve an economic crisis.  So I think Rudy's national future is entirely dependent on whether Americans feel they need a supercop as president.  In Giuliani they'd have the best, but I hope it never comes to that.

May 10, 2011