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Rudy the campaigner

Monday, 10th September 2007

Matt Bai - author of a well-received book on the state of the Democratic Party - has been following Rudy Giuliani around in the mid-West. His piece in the NY Times magazine is full of nuggets like this one:

At a family restaurant in Le Mars (“the ice-cream capital of the world”), Giuliani was asked about his religious beliefs. “I believe in God,” he said haltingly. “I pray and ask him for help. I pray like a lawyer. I try to make a deal: ‘Get me out of this jam, and I’ll start going back to church.’"

The perfect answer? Later, Bai struggles to get the candidate to give detailed answers to foreign policy questions. He's disappointed:

In fact, Giuliani’s answer to all complex foreign-policy dilemmas was essentially the same: the American president had to be someone the rest of the world feared, someone a little too rash and belligerent for anyone else’s comfort. I suggested to him that he really didn’t seem to be proposing any new philosophies distinct from what the Bush administration had been pursuing for the last six years. Instead, he seemed to be arguing that what he offered the country was a certain brand of unswerving leadership that America and the rest of the world would have no trouble understanding.

Straightforward, yes. But is that really going to be enough?