You may have forgotten, but Giuliani is still a candidate for president. After skipping the Iowa caucuses (he finished sixth, behind Ron Paul), the former New York mayor is now trying to kickstart his candidacy with stronger-than-expected finishes in enough early contests (Granite State included) to carry him through Feb. 5, when the big, delegate-rich states like California and New York hold their primaries. "It's no more complicated than this," he told reporters. "There are 28 primaries left. Whoever wins 15 to 20 of them is going to be the candidate. You cannot do it with one primary." Which makes sense a lot of sense mathematically--and exactly zero sense politically. No modern candidate in either party has ever lost the first eight face-offs and gone on to win the nomination. For some reason, people tend to consider you a loser at that point. Go figure.

But history isn't Giuliani's biggest problem. Seeing him on the stump, as I did this morning, it quickly becomes clear that he's relying too much on his airy "America's Mayor" rep and too little on nitty-gritty, shoeleather politics. His appearance--all 20 minutes of it--unfolded as a series of sloppy, unforced errors. To wit:

The Segway: Giuliani rode into the gymnasium on one of these electric, self-balancing human transporters. The reasoning was obvious: Dean Kamen, the device's inventor, is also the founder of today's robotics competition (he introduced Rudy), plus the crowd was packed with people who are, you know, into robots. Fun, I suppose, if more G.O.B Bluth than Jed Barlet. (No one looks presidential on a Segway. Or sane.)

But Giuliani overdid it. First, he joked that he could "shake three times as many hands" aboard one of Kamen's contraptions. No one laughed.

Giuliani then launched into full pandering mode, using the Segway--which he called "what I rode in on, the thing I just rode in on," unable to remember its name--as an example of how American innovation can keep us competitive in the globalized economy. "It's as needed in China and India as it is in the United States," he said, stretching the definition of the word "needed" to its breaking point. "I can tell you that it's needed more in India with the number of people and the crowded streets."  Right. Because putting one billion people on giant two-wheeled scooters is the perfect way to decrease congestion. 

But Giuliani wasn't finished. Repeating his joke that he "could've done twice as much campaigning if I had that thing"--again, no one laughed--Giuliani pledged to "introduce it as a necessary part of campaigning." "Wait until you see me going up and down the streets wherever we go next," he said. "South Carolina, Florida. I'll try it even on Fifth Avenue. That'd be pretty cool, right? The ex-mayor going up and down Fifth Avenue on one of those things."

We're going to hold him to that.

The Promise: In his introduction, Kamen told the crowd that he hoped Giuliani would promise to invite the competition's winners to the White House if elected. A harmless way to woo some potential supporters--except Giuliani, um, forgot to extend the invitation in his remarks. Kamen quickly reminded him, and Rudy did his duty. But an easy score ended up looking sort of insincere.

The Strategy: Asked after the event about his risky Feb. 5 strategy, Giuliani said, "you figure out where you have very little chance, where you have a chance, where you have a good chance. And then you divide up your resources and try to win those states." But he cited New Hampshire as an example. "I believe we've spent the most time in this state [of the GOP candidates] in terms of days," he said. The only problem? He's currently polling 10 percent to McCain's 32 and Romney's 29. In other words, Rudy has invested a lot of resources and received little return. Which isn't so much an argument for his candidacy as an argument against it.

The Robots: One of the biggest risks with robots is that they're always turning against their human creators. If I were Rudy, I would've used this opportunity to tell America that I am only candidate qualified to keep our nation safe from killer cyborgs. Or at least to make fun of Mitt Romney. I'm just saying.