Giuliani does not heart New York

New York City suffers from being downwind of coal fired power plants further west of the city. Guess that's cool with America's Mayor™.

For a native New Yorker mounting a first bid for national office, Rudolph W. Giuliani has shown an impressive ability to raise money in Texas, where his Republican presidential campaign collected $2.2 million in the first quarter of the year, far more than any other candidate.

Mr. Giuliani has drawn support from Texans who were notable donors to President Bush, including a former Enron president, Richard D. Kinder, and business executives who direct many of the nation’s oil, gas and energy producers.

And a good part of this success, analysts say, stems from his affiliation with a well-established and politically connected law firm that is based in Houston and bears his name, Bracewell & Giuliani.

That affiliation adds to Mr. Giuliani’s personal wealth but also could pose political risks for him. The firm is perhaps the nation’s most aggressive lobbyist for coal-fired power plants, heavy emitters of air pollutants and carbon dioxide, a gas associated with global warming. Environmentalists say the firm played a significant role in persuading the Bush administration to roll back major provisions of the Clean Air Act.

Mr. Giuliani joined the 400-lawyer firm as a name partner two years ago, and though his legal work has been limited, his association with it has provided him entree into the wellspring of Texas money that meant so much to the Bush campaigns.

In addition to collecting $89,000 in contributions from Bracewell partners and employees, Mr. Giuliani has held a fund-raiser in Houston. The firm’s managing partner, Patrick C. Oxford, is a top-shelf Bush fund-raiser with a wealth of contacts within Republican money circles.

Most significantly, perhaps, the law firm is one of the higher-profile defenders of the oil, gas and energy industries, to which it provides legal help and extensive lobbying services in Washington. It is difficult to say just how much of Mr. Giuliani’s contributions from those industries stem from his affiliation with Bracewell, but employees of companies in those sectors, including several Bracewell clients, have contributed more than $400,000 to Mr. Giuliani’s campaign so far.

Let's face it. New York City is just another combover in Giuliani's climb to power.

UPDATE: There is Giuliani's thirst for power and his ability to pander his way to it, and then there's his insanity. Michael Wolff runs down the symptoms. Wolff gets most of it -- the wives, the ferrets, his hatred for the city's black leaders, and overshadowing all, his demand for constant attention -- but Wolff forgets one of Rudy!'s most important campaigns as mayor: his campaign against dancing.