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Giuliani Responds to Personal Attacks

ByABC News
April 4, 2007, 11:04 AM

DES MOINES, Iowa, April 4, 2007 — -- Under fire from Christian conservative leaders for the conduct of his personal life, thrice-married former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Tuesday night that his professional performance indicated his personal life was sound.

"You have the right to have any position you like on my personal life," Giuliani told ABC News when asked about the criticism from Christian leaders who had assailed him for his messy divorce from his second wife, Donna Hanover, and his estrangement from their children. "That's their right."

Giuliani added that his personal life "gets best measured by my public performance -- nobody knows someone's soul, nobody knows the inner workings of someone's life. When you have a job, when you have a public job, the best way to judge it is: 'What's your public performance?'"

And on this, not surprisingly, Giuliani gave himself good marks, heralding his work as mayor and saying he had taken "a city that was then considered the crime capital of America, making it the safest large city in America," as well as lessening the city's unemployment and welfare rolls.

"So I think when we look at public officials' personal lives, we're trying to figure out 'How is that going to affect that person's performance in office?'" Giuliani said. "And I honestly think I've answered those questions with my performance."

Giuliani spoke to reporters after addressing a crowd at Valley High School in West Des Moines.

As he made his first sojourn into the Hawkeye State as a presidential candidate this week, 100 Iowa conservatives signed a petition called "The Conservative Declaration of Independence" stating Giuliani's "liberal record as mayor, appointment of liberal judges, and the conduct of his personal life make it impossible for us to support his candidacy under any circumstances."

Even more pointedly, Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, recently said, "My ethics are not flexible enough to make character a central issue with Bill Clinton, and then turn around and not have it be a central issue with Rudy Giuliani."