Rudy Giuliani has so far escaped without a serious challenge from his competitors concerning a potentially damaging report Wednesday that he used taxpayer funds to pay for his security detail while he carrying on an extra-marital affair. Here's why: While the piece is an impressive display of reporter and blogger Ben Smith's investigative chops, it doesn't fit into a neat journalistic narrative that Republican campaigns and the news media can churn into a sound byte. Read more...
The report would appear to play to Republican concerns about Giuliani's unwholesome personal life. With questionable appropriation of public money thrown in, the story could have sunk his candidacy. The Politico article came up briefly during Wednesday night's heated Republican debate in St. Petersburg, when CNN moderator Anderson Cooper asked him to react to the article and say whether he thought the practice was appropriate. Giuliani responded that the police guarded him around the clock and he wasn't responsible for their record keeping. Cooper didn't press him, and Giuliani's rivals declined to raise the issue during Wednesday night's debate, and on Thursday had made little noise about it. The story isn't a tawdry tale in the style of Gary Hart on the Monkey Business yaught, and Giuliani's extramarital affair with Judith Nathan is old news. Nor is the story a clear-cut misappropriation of public funds. Giuliani can easily explain it away, which he did with aplomb at Wednesday night's debate. As Smith himself acknowledges, the news is the diversion of the security expenses to a handful of obscure city agencies. That defrayed the trips' cost. How can, say, Romney's attack machine digest that into a 30-second ad? Any suggestions? The story does, however, serve to remind voters of Giuliani's marital infidelity and perceived unwholesome personal life just weeks before the Iowa causes.
