ghouliani haunted by his dirty past

giuliani poll highs could fall
from rawstory: Former New York City Mayor Rudolf Giuliani is leading the Republican pack in some Election '08 polls. But the same polls seem to suggest that Giuliani is starting to lose some of his momentum.

The drop may continue as allegations rise that his longtime associate Bernard Kerik, onetime nominee to head Homeland Security, has ties to organized crime, as Newsweek's Jonathan Alter comments...

NBC's Tim Russert also suspects that people have begun to look deeper into the former mayor's own past. "There are some bumps ahead for all of the candidates, including Rudy Giuliani," Russert says.

One particular issue that Giuliani is trying to clarify is the role of his wife in his campaign and how she might participate in a Giuliani administration. In an interview with ABC's Barbara Walters, Giuliani freely admits that his current wife, Judith, may participate in policy decisions and cabinet meetings "if she wanted to."

9/11 presents challenges for giuliani
from guardian: Rudy Giuliani's White House aspirations are inescapably tied to Sept. 11, 2001 - for better and for worse.

While the former mayor of the nation's largest city was widely lionized for his post-9/11 leadership - "Churchillian" was one adjective, "America's mayor" was Oprah Winfrey's assessment - city firefighters and their families are renewing their attacks on him for his performance before and after the terrorist attack.

"If Rudolph Giuliani was running on anything but 9/11, I would not speak out," said Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was among the 343 FDNY members killed in the terrorist attack. "If he ran on cleaning up Times Square, getting rid of squeegee men, lowering crime - that's indisputable."

"But when he runs on 9/11, I want the American people to know he was part of the problem."