"Please know this: You have absolutely nothing to fear from me," Mayor Giuliani tried to reassure the values voters. Liberals are emphatically not comfortable with him, he claimed. "If you think that, just read any New York Times editorial while I was mayor of New York City."

What, you mean like this one ("Mr. Giuliani should be applauded for talking about workfare seriously")? Or this one ("Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has engineered a constructive first step toward deficit reduction")?

Romney's running against his state, Rudy against his city. The mayor's problem, though, is that more liberal New Yorkers than he'd care to admit privately believed he was doing necessary work to clean up their city -- enough New Yorkers, as it happens, to elect and then re-elect him. Even that perennial flogging horse, The Times, hasn't hesitated to point that out.