CBS News reports that Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani is estranged from his two young-adult children because of his divorce from their mother and his subsequent third marriage, and says "political analysts" believe it is one of many things that could, ultimately, doom his bid for the GOP presidential nomination.
Giuliani's son Andrew, 21, is a sophomore at Duke University and a member of the school's golf team. His daughter Caroline, 18, attends a private Catholic school in Manhattan and will be attending Harvard University in the fall. CBS said Giuliani has had no comment on his relationship with his children.
Political analyst Charles Cook told Newsday that the latest twist would hurt Giuliani with the GOP's conservative voters. "This is just going to be one of a thousand cuts," Cook told the newspaper. "This will just sort of fit into a whole constellation of issues that work against someone winning a conservative party's nomination, a party that thinks of itself as a pro-family party. This just makes it really hard."
Perhaps. Or perhaps GOP voters are ready to separate the personal from the political. Giuliani's political weaknesses - his liberal positions on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage and his two divorces and three marriages are well-known. And they've become more well-known, not less, as his poll numbers have risen.
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