Inside a Kingdom of Allegiances

"I was the guy giving out the jobs," he says unabashedly.

He was also the guy taking away jobs. He shrugs off charges of cronyism that have dogged Giuliani since those early housecleaning days at City Hall.

"What they want to call cronies were just our people. You had to make a sea change in government. The city wasn't being run properly and there needed to be a change. There were times when we'd go to remove someone from a position and phone calls would come flooding in like the Earth was going to open up and swallow us whole," says Carbonetti.

His father was one of those who received a good job -- director of the community assistance unit. But Lou Carbonetti's job opened the administration to criticism when he was forced to resign because he had failed to report back debts on his business on his disclosure form. It was a misstep his son makes no excuses for.

Tony Carbonetti rose to become Rudy's chief of staff and was by his side through the tumultuous final years as mayor that saw a meltdown of his personal life, prostate cancer, a downward spiral in his approval ratings and the abandonment of his Senate race against Hillary Clinton. Carbonetti walked with him through the rubble of Sept. 11. After Giuliani left office, Carbonetti became his business partner, along with several others from the inner circle, in the very lucrative Giuliani Partners. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Carol, and their two young daughters.

Today, he often travels with the candidate. No one makes a move without him.

Oxford couches Carbonetti's political contribution this way: "Tony is just invaluable -- he knows the candidate's history and perspective, who the mayor has gotten along with, who he hasn't, the players, the chemistry. If there were past problems with someone as we're going into a state, he can tell us how the problem went down, if it would be better if I called to soften someone up."

And then there is his significant personal contribution.

"They say I'm soothing on him," says Carbonetti. "Sometimes he just doesn't want to talk about work and we can talk about anything -- the Yankees, the old mayor's office . . ."

He says Giuliani sleeps only four hours a night and listens to opera on a portable disc player on planes because he can't get good sound on an iPod. Giuliani phones Carbonetti on a 24-hour cycle. "All hours of the night -- never considers where he is, like the West Coast," Carbonetti says, laughing.

At first glance, it's hard to imagine this fast-moving guy being a soothing influence on anyone: The phone is constantly ringing at his Times Square office and a steady stream of longtime disciples buzz around him.

To interview Carbonetti is to keep up with his frenetic pace, whether in his office or speed-walking down Fifth Avenue or at Chase bank where he was desperately trying to close on a condo.