Rudy Ditches Top Fundraiser, Hillary Debates Foes

Rudy Giuliani replaced his lead fundraiser. Anne Dunsmore joined the Giuliani campaign in May, and her credentials as the California finance director during President Bush's 2000 and 2004 elections prompted Giuliani to create a special position for her - deputy campaign manager for finance. Dunsmore was leading the drive to raise more than $100 million; she told the Washington Post's The Fix last May, "When you have $100 million situation hitting or missing by 10 percent is giant...it's a couple of states." Her replacement is another former Bush fundraiser, James H. Lee.

It's unclear why Dunsmore was let go but there was an embarrassing fund-raising moment this week when a Giuliani supporter in California organized an event asking participants to donate $9.11, a classy move that gave Giuliani critics yet another opportunity to blast the former mayor's use of the World Trade Center attacks.

The invitation read, "$9.11 for Rudy [is an] independent, non-denominational grass-roots campaign to raise $10,000 in small increments to show how many individual, everyday Americans support ’America’s Mayor.’" The supporter, Abraham Sofaer, said that some young volunteers came up with the idea.

And at the Democratic debate last night, Senator Hillary Clinton, was attacked for her views on how to handle the Iraq war and how she handled health care during her husband's presidency. Clinton's front-runner status made her the natural target, but the debate didn't seem to change much about the dynamic.

One interesting point came when she said terrorists could not be tortured in order to gain information about eminent threats, something former President Bill Clinton suggested would work. When debate moderator Tim Russert noted the husband and wife's differing views, Clinton "won huge applause" when she said, "Well, I'll talk to him later."

And after Hillary, the Democrats enjoyed going after Giuliani: The Daily News mentioned Senator Joe Biden's zinger, "Rudy Giuliani doesn't know what the heck he's talking about. He's the most uninformed person on American foreign policy now running for President."