The Daily Background

Although Rudy Giuliani is the more famous so-called “9/11 candidate,” a LexisNexis search reveals that over the last year while he and Hillary Clinton have been running for president, news makers are more likely to mention September 11th in connection with Clinton– than with Giuliani.

A search of the academic database, which contains newspaper articles, transcripts, wire reports and journals finds that Rudy Giuliani’s name comes up 242 times when 9/11 is being discussed since last December. Clinton’s name comes up 401 times. Clinton, who was a Senator from New York on 9/11, visited Ground Zero the day after the terrorist attacks occurred, and was led on a tour by then-Mayor Giuliani.

A review of news and radio transcripts found that anchors or reporters mentioned Rudy Giuliani in the context of 9/11 998 times in the past year. Clinton’s name was mentioned 997.

“As a senator from New York, I lived through 9/11 and I am still dealing with the aftereffects,” Clinton said earlier this year in an interview that John Aravosis from Americablog described as “George Bush at his worst.”

“Not only did she lecture Democratic voters about how Iraq is tied to September 11 - which it most certainly is not,” Aravosis wrote, “But she then one upped herself by chastising the other Democratic candidates, and we presume their supporters, over the fact that SHE was alive on September 11, and apparently we weren’t.”

Clinton’s campaign has been the subject of controversy when it was the first to include 9/11 imagery in a television commercial earlier this year. “It’s very inappropriate” the father of one 9/11 victim was quoted by the NY Post as reacting. “I’m not crazy about anybody using it. I don’t care who they are, they shouldn’t be using 9/11 to promote themselves.” Giuliani’s campaign has now followed suit and includes 9/11 imagery in its most recent ad.

Clinton has also brings up 9/11 in her direct mail pieces in New Hampshire, including one which shows her looking concerned with firefighters in front of the wreckage of a building (the photo was not taken at Ground Zero, but many voters who received the mail would probably assume that it was, given that the piece mentions 9/11 on another page).

Earlier this year, Clinton talked about the September 11th attacks so many times while giving a speech before firefighters that it “only made one wonder what kind of a speech Rudy Giuliani would have given if he had chosen to attend the conference” wrote New York Times reporter Patrick Healy.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog