Clinton and Giuliani: Each is What the Other Is Not

By David M. ShribmanFri Nov 9, 7:57 PM ET

Can you win your party's presidential nomination by running against someone in the other party as if she already were in the White House? Can you be nominated on your leadership qualities even if major chunks of your party's political base find your views on the issues repugnant?

These are questions that can only be asked this year and next, that can apply only to the Republican presidential race, that can be directed only at Rudolph W. Giuliani. No matter how many alternative universes there are, there very likely is no one quite like the former mayor of New York. Who else could remotely qualify as the person whom rivals consider the most dangerous man in America and whom supporters think is best suited to keep America safe?

The Rudy phenomenon -- the spectacle of a man being praised for strength in a party that disavows many of his strongest positions -- illuminates some important features of next year's election. They can be summarized in two contradictory sentences that, together, explain the political scene a year from Election Day:

(1) The entire 2008 election is about leadership qualities; and (2) the entire 2008 election is a referendum on Hillary Clinton, who isn't even president.

Ordinarily, with an economy in confusion if not upheaval and with an unpopular war being prosecuted by an unpopular president, you might think that the election would be about the sitting president. But, apart from anti-Bush barbs tossed to the Democratic masses like pieces of raw meat, President Bush is the missing man from the 2008 contest. That is in part because his vice president, Dick Cheney, isn't running for office, but it is also in part because the Bush presidency has ended before Mr. Bush's term has come to a close.

We've seen this before in modern times. Ronald Reagan was president for at least a year before he defeated Jimmy Carter, and if you doubt that for a moment, take a look at the last budget Carter proposed. The election of 1980 simply made the Reagan ascendancy legal.

Now, a few months into the post-Bush era, the two parties' nomination fights are dancing to the same tune. The soundtrack is leadership and Hillaryship.

The former New York mayor is leading the Republican pack (though by less than any GOP front-runner has led his nearest competitor since 1979) by emphasizing his leadership qualities and emphasizing that he is not Mrs. Clinton. The New York senator is leading the Democratic pack by emphasizing her own leadership qualities and is profiting from the unusual phenomenon of being the most incendiary influence in both parties' nomination battles.

The most recent poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows that many Giuliani supporters cite their opposition to Mrs. Clinton as the main reason for backing him -- almost as many as those who cite their affinity for him.

That underlines this notion, apparent since the aborted first confrontation between the two in the 2000 Senate race in New York: They are matter and anti-matter. Love one and you hate the other. Or, more precisely: Love one because you hate the other.

Another matter of matter and anti-matter: The two candidates have reverse profiles.

Mrs. Clinton's supporters cite her stand on the issues as the biggest reason for their views. Mr. Giuliani's supporters cite his leadership abilities, not his stand on the issues. Indeed, Giuliani's views are less important to his political base than they have been for any presidential candidate in 16 years.

These two candidates need each other like the flowers need the rain. They define each other. Mr. Giuliani is intuitive; Mrs. Clinton is cerebral. Giuliani is deeply emotional; Clinton is deeply rational. Giuliani has a habit of demonizing his opponents; Clinton is accustomed to being demonized. Giuliani says he is a Red Sox fan even though he's not; Clinton says she is a Yankees fan but can't even believe that herself. She's everything he isn't. He's everything she isn't. Look for spontaneous combustion if they ever occupy the same debate stage.

They do have one thing in common: Only about half of the voters, according to the Pew survey, see the two as trustworthy.

One thing more. Both candidates have strong opponents waiting in the background if they stumble. Giuliani's is former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, who has a credible chance of winning both Iowa and New Hampshire, which ordinarily is a formula for success. Clinton's is Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who lags in the polls and in the money race but not in optimism or eloquence.

Meanwhile, let's not let the rich color of the personalities involved in the 2008 race blind us to some larger events happening within both parties and within the political system.

Once again, we are faced with opposites: a Republican Party that seems to be pulling apart, a Democratic Party that seems to be pulling together. That occurs as the sitting president seems to be a bigger asset to his rivals than to his allies. And it occurs as the two parties have front-runners who are polarizing figures.

All that is a reminder that this will be an election unlike any other -- not only because of the presence of a former mayor at the front of one party (so far) and of the presence of a woman at the front of another (so far). Either of these would be important departures. But let's not lose sight of the fact that in the next year we are going to witness the shifting of all sorts of assumptions, changing not only our politics but also our country.

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