Opinion: The company Rudy keeps
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It was a coup in mid-March when Rudy Giuliani’s presidential bid won the endorsement of Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, a sign that the former New York mayor with a liberal record on social issues could attract a prominent southerner with solid conservative credentials.
Now, of course, it’s an embrace Giuliani must rue, following Vitter’s apology for what he called a ‘very serious sin’ as he acknowledged that his phone number was among those in the records of calls to the so-called ‘D.C. madam.’ That would be Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who faces charges that an escort service she operated, and defends as a legitimate business, was a prostitution ring.
Vitter’s link to Giuliani --- the senator not only backed him, but served as the campaign’s southern regional chair --- is getting a lot of attention today. An ABC News story notes that Vitter assumed a high profile ‘as a surrogate selling (Giuliani) to social conservatives.’
Vitter’s embarrassment also comes about a month after the head of Giuliani’s campaign in the crucial early-primary state of South Carolina, Thomas Ravenel, was arrested on cocaine charges.
Ravenel stepped down from his day-job as South Carolina treasurer and his post with the Giuliani campaign. No word yet on Vitter’s future in the Guiliani camp, but we tend to doubt that he’ll be sharing a podium with the candidate in the foreseeable future.
A Newsday story wonders whether the clouds surrounding Vitter and Ravenel could have longer-range ramifications for Giuliani by reviving ‘concerns about some of his past New York associates, notably Bernard Kerik.’
Kerik served as New York police commissioner under Giuliani, and the two later became partners in a security consulting business. In late 2004, Giuliani was Kerik’s main sponsor as President Bush mulled naming him to head the Department of Homeland Security. Bush followed through with the nomination, only to watch it implode amid a barrage of questions that arose about Kerik’s character, judgment and integrity.
Speaking of surrogates, Giuliani certainly isn’t alone in having to contend with the headaches they can cause. In late May, it caused quite a stir when Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race. He told the Times he anticipated he would be ‘stumping on her behalf throughout the city, the state and, indeed, throughout the country.’
In the wake of the official crumbling of Villaraigosa’s marriage and his acknowledgement of a long-running affair with a television newscaster who covered City Hall, the mayor’s travel plans presumably have been put on hold.
-- Don Frederick