The line of the week

I'm not saying that I agree with this, but Gerard Baker has the line of the week over at The Times Online:

Watching them embrace Mr Giuliani is like watching survivors from a shipwreck clinging to a giant turd in the water.

Giuliani leaks not all bad for his '08 bid

About a month or so ago, a confidential campaign book for Rudy Giuliani's presidential bid was leaked. Now another leak has hit his campaign, this time of a 1993 mayoral campaign evaluation. Neither document is something a presidential campaign would want in the public domain, but this isn't all bad for Giuliani. Giuliani is a presidential candidate with a lot of weaknesses, and his time as Mayor of New York means that these weaknesses are not secrets. These two documents dump them all on the public when people are not yet fully paying attention to the 2008 race. That gives his campaign a chance to make all of this seem like old news by the time the campaigns really heat up. Recent history has shown that a Presidential candidate can get away with serious weaknesses if the voting public perceives them to be old hat or that the candidate has moved beyond them. It is the surprise revelations that lose voters.