Opinion: Giuliani’s family troubles

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Rudy Giuliani was hard at it today on the campaign trail in Iowa, starting with some hand-shaking in Webster City and then making his way to Fort Dodge, Clear Lake and Mason City. It’s probably just as well that he was keeping himself busy because the news elsewhere had to be discouraging for the Republican presidential contender: Slate, in a story guaranteed to get much attention, reported that Giuliani’s daughter, 17-year-old Caroline, is a Barack Obama fan.

Slate discovered her political leaning by checking out her Facebook profile. Here’s the story.

No word on the matter from the Giuliani campaign, and we doubt there will be. The candidate previously has requested privacy in dealing with tensions between himself and his two children by his second wife.

The problems were spotlighted in a New York Times story five months ago that noted Caroline and her brother, 21-year-old Andrew, were noticeably absent from the Guiliani campaign. In the article, Andrew said his relationship with his dad had become strained in the aftermath of Giuliani’s bitter divorce from the children’s mom, Donna Hanover, and his subsequent marriage to Judith Nathan.

In May, Giuliani attended his daughter’s high school graduation in New York but sat in a last-row balcony seat and left without speaking to her. Caroline will attend Harvard.

The Giuliani campaign was more direct recently in responding to an unflattering Vanity Fair profile of his third wife that referred to her as his ‘princess bride.’ Various aides dismissed it as a ‘hatchet job.’ Giuliani also weighed in, calling it ‘very incorrect.’ And Judith Nathan reflected on the coverage she’s generated in a New York Times piece that appeared Sunday.

-- Don Frederick