RUDY'S DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD. So there's no doubt that Rudy derives a certain degree of his star power from the fact that he honed his personality and publicity skills in one of the media capitals of the world. But I'm struck by the sheer level of skepticism reporters I chat with evince towards his chances, even as he leads in the polls and wows the crowds. And, eventually, I figured it out. Whereas I, a Californian, knew the post-9/11 Rudy, a simply huge portion of the media lives or has lived in New York, and they actually remember Old Rudy. And they keep wanting to cover Old Rudy, or at least tell people about him. That, I'd guess, is why Giuliani isn't giving interviews to actual journalists. And it's why the latest Newsweek, which has a cover story on Giuliani, is bypassing the hype-the-candidate phase and simply saying, on their cover, "The hero of 9/11 is a man of strength and skill, but he can be stubborn and abrasive. Do his virtues trump his vices?" Even if Giuliani has mellowed, or figured out how to appear mellowed, the press corps is simply not going to allow him to slip away from his reputation. The Rudy metanarrative is bubbling away, and if reporters can't preemptively persuade folks to see the Rudy as they know, they'll take the first potentially symbolic incident -- think Dole tumbling off the stage or Dean yelping -- and blow it into the iconic proof of his volatility and imperiousness. Were Rudy the hero mayor from Pennsylvania, say, the press might be willing to buy into his post-9/11 change, even as Pennsylvanians timidly suggested the dude was an authoritarian powder keg. But coming from New York means the media is your constituent, and that's going to hurt him. The media knows the Old Rudy too well to let the New Rudy take over. --Ezra Klein
