Tuesday, November 27, 2007; A06

LOOKING AHEAD

Rudy Giuliani has a fight on his hands to win the Republican presidential nomination, but he already has the general election well scoped out.

I talked with the former New York mayor about this aboard his campaign bus on Saturday afternoon in New Hampshire as he was rolling from Winnisquam to Concord. He had just finished purchasing a fancy Christmas wreath at a nursery and seemed in a relaxed, if not exactly laid back, mood as we headed south. At one point I mentioned something Barack Obama had said recently, which is that he believes the Republicans will be coming after the Democratic nominee on two issues in 2008 -- terrorism and immigration -- and that Democrats had better be ready.

Giuliani laughed. "He's missing a few others," he said. "I don't think they realize how far down the road they've gone toward much more government-controlled medicine, and I don't think they realize how far down the road they went on tax increases, with [New York Rep.] Charlie Rangel's plan. Obama, Edwards and Hillary [Clinton] have bought into 20 to 30 percent tax increases. Those would be historically high tax increases."

I asked Giuliani to assess the political climate for Republicans in 2008, given the low approval ratings of President Bush, the fact that the GOP as a party is less popular today than it has been in a long time and the reality that it is very difficult for one party to win the White House three times in a row.

He suggested that I had missed a few things in my question. "I think there are pros and cons for both of us," he said. "You've just stated all the pros for the Democrats. Here are the pros for us. When you look at a head-to-head matchup, the generic Republican-Democrat thing falls away, and just as often as not, I'm ahead of Hillary nationally as she's ahead of me. "

He also said the Democratic nominee will have a real burden defending the Democratic-controlled Congress. "There is one group more unpopular than the president," he said. "It's the Democratic Congress. Nancy Pelosi. Harry Reid. . . . I think a Republican candidate will have a really good argument: 'You've got to elect me to protect against a Democratic Congress,' if there's going to be a Democratic Congress."

-- Dan Balz

The campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton yesterday accused Sen. Barack Obama of campaigning in a manner that "appears to be inconsistent with the prevailing election laws" in a statement released in response to a report in The Washington Post that Obama's senate leadership PAC doled out money to politicians in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Obama stopped raising money for the PAC, called Hopefund, in January. But in recent months, Obama has handed out more than $180,000 from the PAC to local Democratic groups and candidates in the key early-voting states, campaign reports show. Some of the recipients of Hopefund's largess were state and local politicians who have recently endorsed Obama's presidential bid. The fund also spent more than $440,000 on other expenses, including contributions to Democratic candidates in states that do not have early presidential contests.

In response to the Clinton campaign's comments on the Hopefund, Obama spokesman Bill Burton sent an e-mail saying that "the latest personal attack from Hillary Clinton is a completely false attempt to misrepresent Barack Obama's full disclosure of his campaign finances."

The e-mail continued: "Senator Obama's commitment to disclosure is one that Hillary Clinton does not share, and until Senator Clinton is willing to make this commitment -- by disclosing her White House records, the list of donors to her husband's presidential library, how much her bundlers raise, and releasing her personal tax returns to the public -- she's not really in a position to point fingers at others."

The Obama campaign's campaign finance lawyer, Bob Bauer, also declared that "these donations did not in any way violate the law."

-- Matthew Mosk

Massachusetts may have an enviable record for producing presidential candidates -- think Mike Dukakis, John Kerry and Mitt Romney -- but this year's March 4 primary date made the state all but certain to be irrelevant.

As a result, Gov. Deval Patrick (D) yesterday signed a bill into law moving the state's primary to Feb. 5, joining more than 20 states that are holding presidential voting that day.

The idea, according to lawmakers who quickly passed the measure, is to make sure the state's voters play a role in selecting the presidential nominees. The thinking is that candidates will be obliged to campaign in the state as part of the nationwide primary day. But the history of such efforts to game the calendar suggests they don't always work out as expected. The state's former governor, Romney, may indeed be forced to spend time in the Bay State to avoid losing there. But the other Republican candidates will simply stay away, conceding the state to its favorite son.

-- Michael D. Shear