It remains his finest hour and his best claim to succeed George W Bush as president in 2008. Giuliani has promised to decide whether to run after the mid-term congressional elections in November.
In all the Washington chatter about the White House race Giuliani rarely features as the top contender. But opinion polls place him ahead of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican favourite. A Fox News poll last week found 46% of Republican voters preferred Giuliani for president compared with 36% for McCain. The same poll showed both men beating Hillary Clinton, the Democrat frontrunner.
Before September 11 Giuliani had a matchless reputation as the mayor who beat crime and restored civic pride to the “rotten apple”. He has gone on to form a multi-million-dollar consultancy business, Giuliani Partners, and has been touring the country delivering motivational speeches on “leadership”.
National Journal, the non- partisan Washington insiders’ magazine, last week moved Giuliani up its rankings of Republican presidential hopefuls on the grounds that “we can’t ignore his growing national popularity and the fawning from bright-red (hardcore) conservatives”. Yet it still put him in third place behind not only McCain but also the little-known Mitt Romney, Mormon governor of Massachusetts.
Grand Illusion, a new book on Giuliani by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins published last week, is a rare attempt to dent the former mayor’s reputation for competence. It blames him for siting New York’s emergency command post at the World Trade Center despite a previous terrorist attack in 1993, and for allowing feuding and poor liaison between police and firefighters. His plan on September 11 did not go “much beyond walking towards danger”, it says.
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Yet the personal courage that Giuliani showed is well attested. His most difficult challenge is to prove to Republicans that he is an ideological soulmate. Although brought up a Catholic, the former mayor is on his third marriage, is pro-choice on abortion and supports gun control and civil unions. The question is: how much does America’s heartland care about “God, guns and gays”? Howard Koeppel, a gay friend who housed Giuliani in his Manhattan apartment when his second marriage collapsed and was his flatmate during the terrorist attacks, said Giuliani believes times have changed.
Half in jest, Koeppel recently offered to go on the road with his friend if he decides to run: “I said I’d love to go around with you, but don’t worry, I’ll stay out of the south.”
Giuliani replied, “Don’t be silly, things are different now.”
Opponents cite a skit in which the mayor once dressed up in drag for the New York press corps as proof that he is out of tune with the right. But only last month Giuliani visited the Bible belt state of South Carolina and was hailed as a hero. Byron York of the National Review, a conservative journal, said nobody mentioned his stance on abortion or gays. “Giuliani spent a full day talking to Republicans and he faced exactly one question about it,” York recalled. “And that question was from me.”
That reticence could change under the glare of a presidential campaign. Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, recently organised a focus group where Giuliani won high praise. One member said: “He was there on 9/11. He knows better than anyone the threat we are up against. He’ll carry on the fight until we win this thing.”
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However, the more conservatives learnt about his views, the more their enthusiasm waned. “Rudy will always be America’s mayor, but whether he becomes America’s next president depends on how long he can continue to run a stealth campaign on his social views,” said Luntz.
According to Koeppel, “Rudy is about the person, not the party. He’s a very unique person. He’s bright, he’s ambitious and he’s not beholden to anybody.”
It could be an attractive set of qualifications for an electorate tired of party bickering and divisiveness. Yet Fox News found last week that McCain has the edge over Giuliani among independent voters by 46% to 29%. If Giuliani misses the top slot he may fancy vice-president. “McCain-Giuliani would be a great team — and they’re friends,” said Koeppel.