Get ready to hear Rudy Giuliani talk about hog farming, farm subsidies and lots of other rural issues he never had to ponder as mayor - he's going to Iowa.
The Republican presidential hopeful announced yesterday he'll stump through the Hawkeye State next month, his first trip to the early presidential battleground since he all but announced his 2008 White House bid.
Some had wondered if the pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control Giuliani would skip the state's first-in-the-nation caucus, which is typically dominated by conservative Republicans.
But aides to the former mayor said yesterday that while he is still weighing how much time to spend in Iowa - as opposed to California, Florida and other bigger states now planning early primaries - he planned to compete there.
"It's a compressed schedule that is going to require new strategies in terms of budgeting time and resources," said former Rep. Jim Nussle, Giuliani's top Iowa adviser. "But it doesn't mean you can take anything off the table."
Yesterday, Giuliani was in California, where he touted the leadership style of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican whose endorsement is being aggressively sought by all the GOP contenders.
"Kind of the way I was mayor of New York City, it's the way he's governor of California," he said at a San Diego seafood restaurant. "He is above and beyond everything else a problem-solver, and that's what I would be as a President."
But the former mayor was also dogged by questions about his son, Andrew, 21, who over the weekend acknowledged that his relationship with his father and stepmother, Judith Giuliani, has been frosty for some time.
"My conversations should be private," Giuliani said. "I love my family and the more I could ask you to give us a certain degree of privacy, it's going to be better for everybody."
