Trailhead: A campaign blog.

Fudge Cycle

First, Dr. David Gratzer, the author of the City Journal article Giuliani drew the numbers from and an adviser to the Giuliani campaign, acknowledged that they were outdated and “crude.” Then his source for the numbers, a health research organization called The Commonwealth Fund, accused Gratzer of misusing the data. In other words, no one was willing to stand behind the numbers. Both the Washington Post’s Fact Checker and PolitiFact.com, two watchdogs for the lies, damned lies, and statistics of the 2008 presidential candidates, roundly rejected Rudy’s statement.

At the time, the Giuliani campaign itself issued a not-quite-defense of the statistic: “The citation is an article in a highly respected intellectual journal written by an expert at a highly respected think tank which the mayor read because he is an intellectually engaged human being.” But on Friday, Giuliani reiterated his support for the numbers as “absolutely accurate,” if a little dated: “Even if you want to quibble about the statistics, you find me the person who leaves the United States and goes to England for prostate cancer treatment, and I'd like to meet that person,” he said.

Rudy does have defenders other than himself. The Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner argues in National Review today that Giuliani’s numbers are problematic, but that his overall point stands. “Beyond the debate over numerical minutiae,” Tanner writes, “the basic fact is that Britain’s system of socialized medicine is bad for your health.”

But then why use such murky numbers? As Tanner himself notes, the stats on non-prostate cancers support his point much better. It illustrates a larger point about Giuliani that Slate’s John Dickerson has made before: that his greatest strength is his willingness to make highly questionable statements with utter conviction. It’s an approach that has gotten Rudy in trouble before, like when he said he’d pay for tax cuts with more tax cuts. But getting in trouble with fact-checkers is different from getting in trouble with Republican voters. From the perspective of the polls, what he says seems less important than how loudly and how often he says it.

Health Conscious

The politics of illness is particularly sensitive in this election, with so many candidates and their spouses battling one disease or another. Fred Thompson announced in April that he had been diagnosed with lymphoma but that the cancer was in remission. Before that, Elizabeth Edwards revealed that her cancer had returned but that her husband's campaign would continue. And now Rudy Giuliani, pushing his health-care plan in New Hampshire, is rolling out a new radio ad discussing his experience with prostate cancer, which he defeated in 2000.

"I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago," Giuliani says in the spot. "My chance of surviving prostate cancer, and thank God I was cured of it, in the United States, 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England, only 44 percent under socialized medicine."

It feels icky to discuss life-threatening illnesses in PR terms, but it's no accident that Rudy chose to weave his own story into his message about health care. We're used to seeing warrior Rudy, victory this and security that. We're not used to seeing vulnerable Rudy.

Of course, there's good vulnerable and there's bad vulnerable. In Thompson's case, people initially wondered if he would be able to launch his campaign. In Edwards' case, allies speculated that he would drop out. But Rudy's case is—forgive me for saying it—a good one, at least from the political angle. For one thing, he beat the cancer. (Look out, Islamofascism.) But more importantly, it softens him up. As Elizabeth Edwards might say, he has stared the worst in the face and not blinked.

This sort of human touch—candid without being cheesy—is just what Rudy needs. For him, religion is private, and the same seems to be true for other personal and emotional issues. But personal narratives matter to voters. We know he's willing to put people in a hospital. It's also good to know he's been there himself.