Iowans look for dirt under Giuliani's fingernails

By Adam Nagourney

updated 2:41 a.m. ET Aug. 20, 2007

GREENFIELD, Iowa - The setting was a small round table in the near-empty Nodaway Diner here in a remote patch of western Iowa. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and a candidate for president, had finished his hamburger and was fielding the usual mix of questions. Taxes and terrorism. Iran and Iraq.

Oh, and this:

“You’ve been out here in the country where there are no roads,” said Betty Schuler, a farmer who drove 30 miles with her husband, Kenneth, to see Mr. Giuliani. “When you get back to the big city, are you going to forget the little guys out here who are farming to feed you?”

“Oh, I’m not going to forget the little guy anywhere,” Mr. Giuliani assured Mrs. Schuler. “When I got elected mayor of New York City, I didn’t forget anybody. The place that kind of won the election for me was Staten Island. It’s the closest thing that New York City has to — I wouldn’t call it rural, but suburbs.”

He paused as these seven Iowa voters looked quizzically at the famous guest in their midst.

Mr. Giuliani left no doubt that he intends to compete in the Republican caucuses that start the presidential nomination process here next January, and asked that no conclusions be drawn from his decision to skip the recent Iowa Straw Poll, where he got just 1 percent of the vote.

But Mr. Giuliani’s unconventional tour through tiny farming communities in the rolling hills of western Iowa this week displayed the cultural challenges he faces as he tries to win over a part of the country that could not be more different from the city that he calls home.

“Have you spent any time on a farm?” Karen Thomsen asked Mr. Giuliani, as he settled in at the Chuckwagon Cafe. Advertised as the only restaurant in Cumberland, the cafe was without lights and ceiling fan, because of a brownout.

“Have I ever worked on a farm?” Mr. Giuliani responded. He paused and furled his brow.

“No,” he said, smiling. “I mean, I’ve visited a farm. But you know there are no farms in New York City.” '

And it was back to Staten Island. “People in Staten Island feel like they are part of their own community,” he said. “You get the same feeling you get in smaller-town America.”

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As Mr. Giuliani moved on to the next table, Mrs. Thomsen whispered a mischievous aside: “I had hoped he would not show up in a suit-coat, because this is not a suit-coat community in August.” (Mr. Giuliani was not exactly decked in a suit, but his crisp shirt and handsome power tie made him stand out in a sweltering room of jeans and short-sleeve shirts.)

Mr. Giuliani certainly appears more at ease campaigning in rural Iowa these days than he did in rural upstate New York when he briefly ran for the United States Senate in 2000. That campaign was marked by upstate excursions memorable for being very fast and sometimes awkward.

And he seems a lot more attuned to the rhythms and culture of Iowa than he did a few months ago when David Yepsen, the Des Moines Register’s political columnist, chastised Mr. Giuliani as being “rude” after he showed up 45 minutes late to a town hall meeting without explanation or apology.

He is as much a figure of admiration here as he is across much of the nation, with many people coming up to praise his leadership of New York after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and to express definite interest in his candidacy. He was met with smiles, the occasional hug and courtesy to a fault.

“I like him,” said Marsha Sternberg, a receptionist in a chiropractor’s office. “He’s a little liberal on some issues for me, but I’m going to watch him as time goes by.”

Yet to say this courtship seemed odd would be something of an understatement as Mr. Giuliani endured what is always a trying test for presidential candidates: making small talk under the close observation of voters and reporters. It was, as he traveled through heavily Republican country in the most rural part of Iowa, a complicated process of cultural negotiation. At moments, he was the candidate from Mars who seemed as if he was campaigning on Venus (and no disrespect intended toward either planet).

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