Giuliani calls Democrats ‘losers’ for Iraq stance

HOUSTON — Republican presidential candidate Rudolph W. Giuliani called Democrats “the party of losers” Thursday for demanding a scheduled pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq.

“Democrats have already declared we’ve lost,” the former New York mayor said during a campaign stop at a diner. “It’s really strange. The Democrats want to give our enemies a timetable. Never in history of war has a retreating army been asked to give a timetable.

“I’m for victory,” Giuliani said. Democrats, he said, are “living in a world where they refuse to admit the existence of Islamic terrorism,” he said, an oft-repeated line.

Giuliani’s remarks came a day after two rivals for the GOP nomination -- former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain -- pointedly criticized Democratic candidates as too liberal and ill-prepared for the nation’s top job.

He worked a breakfast crowd for about a half-hour at the Avalon Diner. Many of the people were drawn to the nearly 70-year-old restaurant adjacent to Houston’s River Oaks neighborhood by e-mails from his campaign.