Looking Back to '9/10 Rudy,' and Ahead to 11/'08

Rudy Giuliani, who is now the Republican presidential front-runner (according to absurdly early polls), has a problem. And it's not just that he may be too liberal on social issues for GOP primary voters.

The former mayor's earliest adversary is the New York press corps, and its depiction of what has come to be dubbed the 9/10 Rudy.

Every White House contender must deal with a home-state media contingent that knows his or her flaws and foibles. But Giuliani came to power in the nation's biggest media echo chamber, where hordes of journalists remember his personal and political difficulties before the Sept. 11 attacks gave him a heroic aura.

"Anyone who lived here at the time remembers the 9/10 Rudy: strong on crime and the economy, yes, but arrogant, bullying, and terrible on race and civil rights. . . . The rest of America sees a far different Rudy," says a New York Magazine cover story.

In Newsweek, columnist Jonathan Alter says: "His ridiculously thin skin and mile-wide mean streak were not allegations made by whiners and political opponents. They were traits widely known to his supporters."

Slate Editor Jacob Weisberg writes: "Giuliani was a frustrated and not very popular mayor on Sept. 10, 2001. Today, most New Yorkers do see him as a hero, but also as a self-sabotaging, thin-skinned bully. To put it more bluntly, we know he's a bit of a dictator."

Tony Carbonetti, a senior political adviser to Giuliani, says some New York journalists have been "writing . . . forever" that the ex-mayor has no national future and are trying "to make sure it comes true. Sometimes people you did battle with for eight years want to go out and make names for themselves."

But their arguments are a "farce," says Carbonetti: "What was wrong with the 9/10 Rudy? The New York success story all took place before September 11."

Such media broadsides are nothing new. When Bill Clinton ran in 1992, the editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat had already branded him "Slick Willie," and the managing editor called him a "dirty rotten scoundrel." In 2000, John McCain's feud with the Arizona Republic -- which questioned whether his "volcanic" temper rendered him unfit to be president -- led the candidate to ban the paper's reporter from his bus. In 2004, when the Boston Globe reported that John Kerry had Jewish grandparents and suggested he may have falsely implied that he was of Irish ancestry, then-campaign manager Jim Jordan called the paper's coverage "distorted, insignificant, irrelevant and vindictive."

When a presidential candidate surges in the polls, reporters generally parachute into places such as Little Rock, Austin or Boston to dig into his record. But in Giuliani's case, journalists at the top news organizations simply have to search their memories.

"I can't write a story about Mitt Romney's term without doing a lot of research," Weisberg says in an interview. "But the Giuliani story was very top of mind for me. The argument was already in my head."

A Newsweek cover story out today says Giuliani -- who once appeared in fishnet stockings with the Rockettes and dressed up for a press dinner as Marilyn Monroe -- may have a tough time selling himself to conservatives.