Guiliani says visits to Iowa are not a prelude to Presidential campaign

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has made two trips to Iowa this month, but he says it’s not a prelude to a presidential campaign for 2008. Giuliani says one of the many lessons of the 2004 Iowa Caucuses is how politics can change in two weeks. He says no one knows who’ll be running for president in four years. Giuliani says his decision about a return to public service will be made “far off in the future.” Giuliani says he doesn’t want to focus or speculate on 2008 before the 2004 election’s over. He says his political agenda for 2004 will be reelecting President Bush. Giuliani is chairman of the Republican National Convention in New York, and he says he wants to “focus, without any competing agenda, on being able to do that right.” Giuliani was keynote speaker last night at a Greater Des Moines Partnership banquet, and he talked about his book on leadership, a book he began shortly after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. Giuliani says he started writing the book, then September 11th happened. Giuliani set the draft aside, and when he went back to it, Giuliani says it was a “very strange experience.” Giuliani and several of the city leaders who served in his administration have formed a consulting business on emergency response issues. Giuliani says he survived being trapped inside a building on September 11th with the group of aides, and they just wanted to continue working together after he left his post as Mayor of New York.