Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in Southern California to speak with sheriffs about gang violence, instead "found himself peppered with questions about his family after his son, Andrew, publicly stated that their relationship had soured after Giuliani's messy divorce from Andrew's mother, Donna Hanover, and his later marriage to Judith Nathan," the Associated Press reports. 

Giuliani, his balding head sweating under the hot California sun, appeared to have prepared for the questions about his family. When asked a second question, he repeated his answer almost word-for-word. The dispute with his son sidetracked an event that was intended to highlight his crime-fighting credentials...

While Giuliani's messy private life may provide an avenue of attack for the media and for his rivals for the GOP presidential nomination, and yesterday it certainly knocked his campaign off message at least briefly, there's actually some good news in this for the Giuliani campaign.

It's March 2006, 11 months before anyone casts a vote that matters. The very early start to the presidential primary means that a lot of the negatives about Giuliani - and the other candidates - are being aired now, when few voters are paying attention, and the media may well consider them "old news" by the fall, when voters' attention on the race will be more intense.