Boston Globe: Amid family displays, Giuliani goes solo
By Brian C. Mooney
Globe Staff / January 2, 2008
....For Rudy Giuliani...the stretch drive of his pursuit of the Republican nomination has been mostly a solo excursion in recent weeks. His wife, Judith, until late fall a presence as surrogate, fund-raiser, and campaign trail companion, now rarely appears with him. In the past 6 1/2 weeks, she has appeared in public three times, all in Florida, where she is well received.
It's another manifestation of the Giuliani campaign adapting its strategy to minimize exposure of his liabilities, in this case his messy private life. Giuliani's sharp plunge in the polls - for months they indicated he was the clear national front-runner - began around the time of news reports about police security details for Giuliani and his future wife while they had an extramarital affair when he was mayor of New York. After the stories, Mrs. Giuliani's public schedule was curtailed.
These personal circumstances have long been seen as potentially damaging for Giuliani, especially among socially conservative Republicans who often play an outsized role in the primaries. The heightened attention to the candidates' every move in the final days, with their family members everywhere, has served to emphasize Giuliani's solitude, even if some Iowans say Giuliani's other strengths outweigh the family factor....
Giuliani's relationship with his two children has been strained since Giuliani's surprise announcement at a 2000 press conference that he was leaving their mother, Donna Hanover.
Since the run of bad press that started in late November, Giuliani has more or less disengaged from the wide-open early-state races, often campaigning in Florida, California, Illinois, and Missouri, while his rivals concentrate on Iowa and New Hampshire....For Giuliani, all roads lead to Florida because its Jan. 29 primary is the key to his unconventional and untested strategy that has committed unusual amounts of time and resources to large, later-voting states, mostly on Feb. 5, that will produce the bulk of delegates to the party's nominating convention next summer. The campaign is banking on his support holding in those states even if he finishes poorly in the earlier contests....
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/02/amid_family_displays_giuliani_goes_solo/?page=full