Today the New Hampshire State Troopers Association endorsed former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani in his bid for the Republican nomination.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani gets a trooper jacket along with his endorsement.(Jon Greenberg, NHPR)
The president of the troopers said this was the first time the group had formally supported any presidential candidate. A key factor this time was that Giuliani had the right policies, the right record, and that he asked for the endorsement.
Giuliani used the moment to praise the handling of the hostage situation that took place Friday at the Rochester campaign offices of Democrat Hillary Clinton. He said the coordination among various law enforcement and public safety agencies should not be taken for granted.
"It isn't necessarily the case that the kind of response you had here in New Hampshire would necessarily be the response in every part of the country. Not everyone is at the same level of preparation. And one of my commitments in the twelve commitments that I made to the American people here in New Hampshire is, that everybody has to be at least a basic level of preparation."
Giuliani said if elected, he would make a major committment to use federal money to improve local and state emergency response capacity.
The state troopers' endorsement comes about two weeks after New York firefighters came to New Hampshire to criticize Giuliani's for what they called a failure of leadership leading up to and following the 9-11 attacks.
