Giuliani and Romney, making two a crowd

By Michael Luo

updated 2:24 p.m. ET Oct. 6, 2007

MANCHESTER, N.H. - The two men were both leaders in liberal bastions. They both once held positions heretical to Republican Party orthodoxy. And they are both campaigning in large measure on their competency and ability to change Washington.

Now Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mitt Romney are engaging each other as never before in the towns and villages of New Hampshire, from Derry to Nashua. It is a state where Mr. Romney’s regional appeal, bolstered by heavy advertising, helped him to early leads in the polls but is now being threatened by the autograph-seeking crowds that greet every appearance by Mr. Giuliani.

And as Mr. Giuliani has started focusing more on Mr. Romney’s backyard, Mr. Romney on Thursday leveled some of his sharpest criticism to date on Mr. Giuliani’s record as New York mayor, accusing him of the cardinal sins of supporting taxes and opposing tools to limit spending.

With the candidates practically tripping over each other this week in their appearances on consecutive days, even working patrons at the same diner in Derry, the campaigning has shown the stark contrasts between the styles of these two men as they head into the final three months of campaigning before the New Hampshire primary.

“The mayor is a New Yorker; you can see that,” said Bill Andreoli Sr., 60, owner of Mary Ann’s, a ’50s-style diner in Derry that both men visited. “Romney is kind of polished, and the mayor is a little more outgoing when it comes to speaking off the cuff.”

Where Mr. Romney, even as the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, still has to introduce himself to voters here, his rival has basked in the fame gained by his response to the attacks of Sept. 11 for so long that he has even perfected a technique for signing baseballs (jamming the ball against his knee to steady it while writing with a ballpoint pen in his free hand).

Mr. Giuliani is blunt and lecturing; Mr. Romney is precise and practiced. Mr. Romney speaks in full sentences, with clauses that flow into full paragraphs and build to calculated crescendos. Mr. Giuliani’s words often tumble out, stream-of-conscious style, meandering with little of the rah-rah, inspirational moments typical of political oratory.

“That’s my appeal,” Mr. Giuliani said to reporters on Wednesday in Salem. “I am me. I will be straight with people. I think the most important thing we’re facing is the challenge of terrorism.”

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The next day at a forum here, Mr. Romney told his audience: “Now, I don’t have all the answers. I don’t pretend to be the answer man. But I do know how to get all the answers.”

He highlighted his private sector résumé and spoke about what could be accomplished by “bringing in great people, doing sound analysis, thorough analysis, gathering data, setting a strategy and following a course that is benchmarked to see if we are progressing or not.” He added, “We need that in America.”

The campaigns are starkly different, too. When Mr. Romney met with the news media after his first stop on Thursday, aides had laid tape on the ground to mark where the candidate would stand and where the media should gather. Mr. Giuliani’s media meeting a day earlier had the organization of a rugby scrum.

Subdued audiences
While both men draw approving crowds, they typically number in the dozens, much smaller than the mega-events the leading Democrats often hold. Both Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani found themselves this week speaking before rather subdued audiences filled with many people who have yet to make up their minds.

Mr. Giuliani used Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, as the foil to stir emotion. Mr. Romney was genteel by comparison, talking about “family values” and working hard to inspire with anecdotes.

The voters who support Mr. Giuliani or Mr. Romney cite recurrent themes in explaining their appeal. For Mr. Giuliani, the words that come up most often are “genuine,” “honest,” and “strong.” Mr. Romney’s admirers find him “competent,” “presidential” and a “family man.”

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