House Editorial: Gushing Giuliani
Lip-locked presidential candidate reminds us how repetitive politics can be
Posted on February 9, 2007

Just when the campaign finally got serious, the New York Post reminded us why it is called a tabloid — and it has nothing to do with the position of the newspaper fold.

Following his announcement on Fox News that he filed federal “statement of candidacy” papers, the Post triumphantly reported Giuliani’s pending candidacy under a remarkably intimate full-front color photograph of he and his wife Judith swapping spit.

An excerpt from a Harper’s Bazaar photo shoot showing the more, um, personal side of the possible president, the eye-catching cover had New Yorkers — and soon much of the country — talking.

But it is not just the brazen public display of affection that should be grabbing our attention; especially with Hillary Clinton as a possible opponent, seeing Rudy and “Judi” Giuliani should be déjà vu all over again.

Back in 2000, before Sept. 11 made him “America’s mayor” and Time magazine’s “Man of the Year,” Giuliani was a divisive, law-and-order New York politician running in the Republican primary for the vacant Senate seat occupied by Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan. As for the Democrat running against him, it was none other than the first lady of the United States, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Giuliani was widely expected to secure the Republican nomination. But Donna Hanover had other plans.

Actress and journalist Donna Hanover was, at the time, Giuliani’s second wife, though that was not to last. Their relationship had, for multiple reasons (including Guiliani’s alleged indiscretions), been long on the rocks.

But New York is the hardest state in the Union in which to obtain a no-fault divorce  — not, of course, because liberal New Yorkers are pro-family, but because it is a state overpopulated with lawyers. As a result, the divorce proceedings between Giuliani and Hanover were long, bitter and plastered all over the front page of the New York tabloids for ages.

It all came to a head in May, when Hanover again accused Giuliani of marital unfaithfulness with one Judith Nathan (aha!) and kicked him out of Gracie Mansion, the taxpayer-supported riverside mayoral mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

Giuliani responded by going public with another secret — he was receiving treatment for prostate cancer. Though he did not deny his emotional relationship with Nathan, the argument was quietly circled that, due to his treatment, he was physically unable to have sex, and therefore could not have been cheating. Either way, a man accused of adultery would have a hard time doing well in an election against Bill Clinton’s aggrieved wife. The one-two punch of cheating and cancer soon forced him to drop out of the race.

Republican New York Congressman Rick Lazio of Long Island attempted to pick up the pieces of the Giuliani campaign, but his rushed, late-term candidacy did not stand a chance against the well-oiled Clinton war machine. Lazio lost by a wide margin, Giuliani was taken down a notch and Hillary Clinton stepped out from her husband’s shadow and onto a national stage.

Going on seven years later, much has changed. But a surprising amount is still the same. Though Giuliani is now happily married to Nathan, his infidelity issue will be no easier to ignore running against Clinton now than it was then. That, of course, is assuming that a somewhat liberal New Yorker with a penchant for public cross-dressing could survive the Republican primary. But as he heads toward the caucuses, it would likely serve “America’s mayor” well to keep his hands to himself, wedding ring or not.