The mayor who would be president: or would he? A look at Rudy's career, character, and prospects.

RUDY GIULIANI became "America's Mayor" when he confidently took charge after the terrorist attacks of September 11. He rose to the challenge with grace and grit, and his pitch-perfect reactions captured something far more universal than his own anger, determination, and heartache. The tough-talking former mayor now enjoys a unique status among national politicians. Newsweek's Eleanor Clift had plenty of company when she contemplated Hurricane Katrina's devastation and asked, "Where is Rudy Giuliani when we need him?" In the political-leadership sweepstakes, Giuliani is A-number-one, top of the list, king of the hill. But Sinatra's catchy claim is turned on its head in the presidential sweepstakes: When it comes to winning over GOP primary voters, if you can make it in New York, you can't make it anywhere else.

It's true that presidential-preference polls have typically found Giuliani on top, beginning with a survey taken on Election Day 2004, when the ballot ink was barely dry. According to that poll, conducted by McLaughlin and Associates, Giuliani was the first choice of 34 percent of Republican voters, with John McCain at 15 percent and other candidates trailing in the low single digits. A year later, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of likely GOP primary voters gave Giuliani a 34-31 percent lead over McCain, and a Gallup survey earlier this year found him with a similar advantage (33-28). Polls taken this June confirm that Giuliani and McCain presently dominate the GOP field: Gallup found Giuliani on top with 29 percent to McCain's 24 percent, while a Cook Political Report/RT Strategies poll reversed the lead, with McCain at 29 and Giuliani at 24. Polls also show that Giuliani would be a formidable opponent for Hillary Clinton, the current Democratic frontrunner. A Fox News poll in May found that voters would choose the former mayor over the current senator by a margin of 49-40 percent, the strongest showing against Hillary of any potential Republican candidate.

Giuliani's allure isn't confined to poll ratings. He has proven to be a terrific fundraiser, and his dance card this election season is filled with Republican suitors eager to campaign at his side. His "Solutions America" political action committee raised $2 million at a recent dinner in New York. In a single week in July, he drew big crowds as he stumped for grateful candidates in Ohio, Arkansas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. When Giuliani headlined a May fundraiser in Georgia, lieutenant-governor candidate Ralph Reed declared, "Rudy Giuliani is one of the finest leaders in not only the Republican party, but in either party."

Such accolades, along with the early polls, provide the evidence for Rudy's Republican boosters to argue that, although he is out of step with the GOP base on a host of issues, his demonstrated leadership and political celebrity can calm misgivings about his social liberalism and operatic personal life.

In his recent book Can She Be Stopped? Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless ..., John Podhoretz outlines a ten-point plan to prevent that scary prospect. Point number ten is "Nominate Rudy." Podhoretz counsels that Republicans "not hold ideological purity more dear than partisan victory in the coming two years." And he believes that victory-minded Republicans are heeding his advice. In a recent column in the New York Post, he noted that Giuliani and McCain both hold views at odds with their party's base yet head every poll of GOP primary voters. He concluded, "Such people tend to be more involved in and better informed about politics than the average American, so it stands to reason that they have some knowledge of McCain's and Giuliani's positions. And so far it isn't bothering them. Why? One word: leadership."

While allowing that Giuliani would "have to shift his ground and move toward social conservatives if he is to prevail," Podhoretz's bullish views on the former mayor echo those of other conservatives--who live or work in New York. Giuliani governed their ungovernable city and dramatically reduced crime, while holding views on law and order and welfare dependency that put him on the right of the city's political spectrum. He cheered the city's conservatives by racking up all the right enemies.

THREE STRIKES

In contrast, analysts west of the Hudson see little chance that Giuliani will get the nomination. When asked why not, one veteran strategist in a competitor's camp laughingly answers, "God, guns, and gays," and--as though to drive the point home to Giuliani, who is a devoted Yankees fan--adds, "Three strikes, you're out." Like others, the strategist concedes that the public's 9/11 image of Giuliani transcends partisan politics, but argues that the image won't last in a heated primary battle.

Even now there are widespread Republican reservations about Giuliani. He has almost 100 percent name recognition, gets rave reviews for his stellar performance on September 11, and wins praise for his enthusiastic support of President Bush; yet about 70 percent of likely Republican voters don't endorse a potential Giuliani candidacy for president. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz recently wrote, "Those who think that the 9/11 hero would be a formidable candidate are forgetting about the 9/10 Rudy. Meaning, this is a guy who is pro-choice on abortion, pro-gay rights and moved in with a gay couple after a messy breakup with his wife that came as he was dating another woman."

Most pro-choice Republican politicians and about 80 percent of the public support banning partial-birth abortions. When Giuliani was planning to run against Hillary Clinton for the Senate in 2000, New York's Conservative party chairman Michael Long pledged to help the mayor on two conditions: that he refuse the Liberal party endorsement and that he promise to back a partial-birth-abortion ban. When Giuliani wouldn't agree--even though no Republican had won statewide office without the endorsement of the Conservative party in over 25 years--one conservative activist told Newsday that the former mayor must be counting on anti-Hillary sentiment and allowed that conservatives might "vote for the town drunk" over Clinton. A repeated failure to moderate his views would suggest that Giuliani is still counting on that anti-Hillary animus.

Owing to Giuliani's support for abortion, NARAL head Kate Michelman anticipated sitting out a Hillary Clinton-Rudy Giuliani Senate match-up. She explained that NARAL wouldn't "take sides in the race because both likely candidates are abortion-rights advocates." NARAL's New York director Kelli Conlin now welcomes a Giuliani presidential run: "There'd be nothing better for us than to have a situation where both [presidential] candidates are pro-choice."

Mayor Giuliani has regularly marched in the city's vulgar gay-pride parades. When the Log Cabin Republicans--a group of GOP gay-rights advocates--refused to endorse George W. Bush for reelection, it announced, "The Republican Party has a choice: It can be the party of Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger or it can be the party of Alan Keyes and Rick Santorum." Of course, Iowa voters have a big say in that choice. In 2000, Bush had the endorsement of leading social conservatives--and Gary Bauer and Alan Keyes got a combined 24 percent of the GOP caucus votes.

The first Catholic to top a Republican presidential ticket is unlikely to be not only pro-abortion and pro-gay-rights, but also thrice-married. Barrels of tabloid ink have chronicled the scandalous personal life of Rudy Giuliani, who was openly squiring his "very good friend" Judith Nathan around town long before he called a press conference to tell his wife that he was in love with the divorcee and wanted a separation. The estranged wife--his second--then accused him in a press conference of having had an earlier affair with a longtime aide. His first marriage was annulled in 1982 on the grounds that he and that wife were second cousins.

WORDS FROM THE VAULT

One conservative strategist predicts that when Giuliani's positions and record are better known, conservative primary voters will not only back other candidates but mobilize against him. Republican voters who currently prefer Rudy Giuliani to John McCain because of the latter's well-known maverick streak may not know that Mayor Giuliani endorsed Mario Cuomo for governor in 1994. And those who object to the McCain-Kennedy amnesty for illegal immigrants will learn that it enjoys Giuliani's support. Many conservatives will be surprised to find out that, although Giuliani says Ronald Reagan is his political hero, 20 years ago he was calling attorney general Ed Meese, one of the most respected and beloved figures of the Reagan administration, a "sleaze." Meese's allies still bristle at what they see as Giuliani's political opportunism in joining the assault on Meese to boost his career in liberal New York.

The research teams of other GOP contenders for the 2008 nomination haven't yet taken Giuliani on, but George Marlin, who ran as a Conservative in New York's 1993 mayoral race, has helpfully compiled a modest collection of quotes that will give primary voters pause. According to the Rudy Giuliani of 1992, Nelson Rockefeller represented "a tradition in the Republican party I've worked hard to rekindle--the Rockefeller, Javits, Lefkowitz tradition." When the Liberal party of New York endorsed Giuliani for mayor in 1989, it explained, "He agreed with the Liberal party's views on affirmative action, gay rights, gun control, school prayer, and tuition tax credits."

Although Giuliani recently said that he is "seriously considering" a presidential run in 2008, many observers doubt he will seek the nomination. One cynic noted that "there is a big difference in the speaking fees of a future president and a former mayor." Others see Giuliani and McCain competing for the same core supporters and predict a Giuliani bid only if the Arizonan declines to run (though everyone agrees that another terrorist attack on the U.S. would prioritize the War on Terror and provide an opening for the 9/11 Rudy).

"I am who I am," Giuliani recently declared in response to criticism that his views are out of step with the Republican party. Yes; and his dim political prospects are also what they are.