This one doctor of mine, who I have written about before, sidesteps the manners of most people and nearly every doctor by talking politics as soon as he enters the examination room and shakes my hand. So it was this afternoon. A handshake, greeting, smile, and then: "Which one?"
He knows that I am on the right, once at the head of my little city's Republican party. The inquiry's subject — declared and intimated GOP presidential candidates — was obvious. Still, my response was long, about three-quarters qualification that I thought germane. I have no reason to vote against any of them, I said, not right now; too much can happen. But, I continued, looking off to the side, if the primary were today my choice would be — Giuliani.
"Mine too," my doctor said. "And that would be a crossover." The former mayor, in his words, "knows what is going on" and has demonstrated noble competence, most strikingly so in Manhattan. "He's a New Yawkah," my doctor laughed, from the City himself. Then came a frown with the contemplation of provident commentary on Giuliani's chances outside his hometown.
Such pessimism, I volunteered, must be drawn from caricatures of the Republican base and the broader country. How much, I couldn't know for certain, but sharp refusal is a suspicion of those who live, corporally or sympathetically, in Washington, D.C. It is contravened by polls, including one taken with a sample of two disparate, likely voters, whose respondents agreed that as it all looks right now, neither party would be too disappointed if its letter succeeded the name of Rudy Giuliani.