New York papers offer Giuliani a Bronx cheer

It's possible that Rudy Giuliani picked up a few votes in Red Sox Nation, specifically the province of New Hampshire, by proclaiming Tuesday that he'll root for the Sox in the World Series.

But back home in New York, where he is perhaps the most famous Yankees fan, his declaration is doing as well as a Mariano Rivera cutter about to be launched over the Green Monster by Manny Ramirez.

"Traitor," blared the front-page headline yesterday in the Daily News. "Redcoat," complained the New York Post.

Giuliani, during a news conference in Boston, said he wanted to support the American League champion against the National League's Colorado Rockies. The former New York mayor is also locked in a tight battle with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the New Hampshire primary.

But in June, Giuliani said he wouldn't make a deal with the devil - become a Sox fan to become president.

"I'm a Yankee fan," he told a columnist for the Providence Journal. "My father made me a Yankee fan . . . I have great respect for Mets fans, Red Sox fans. I have great respect for people who really are fans of the team they say they are fans of. But probably that's a deal I could not make."

FOON RHEE

It's one up, one down for Mitt Romney in South Carolina.

Today, he starts airing a new TV ad in which he promises to slash federal spending and "audit" Washington using his business acumen. It's the multimillionaire businessman’s latest appeal to Republican voters unhappy with President Bush and Congress for significantly increasing spending.

Romney is down one notable endorsement - from Don Wilton, immediate past president of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Romney trumpeted Wilton's support on the eve of the Values Voter Summit last weekend in Washington, a key gathering of Christian conservatives.

But according to the Baptist Press, Wilton, who is pastor of the First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, S.C., now says that the endorsement was a mistake.

"While I did give my consent to the local campaign to use my affirmation of the Governor's stance on family values in my capacity as an individual citizen, I made the mistake of not realizing the extent to which it would be used," Wilton said.

FOON RHEE

It began as a simple, three-day gospel tour through South Carolina to build support for Barack Obama among African-American voters. But this weekend's event has become a major headache for Obama's campaign, which is now trying to quell a furor.

One of the scheduled performers is Donnie McClurkin, a Grammy-winning singer who has said homosexuality is a "curse" that was cured in him and can be cured in others. Obama has disavowed McClurkin's remarks, but the campaign has resisted calls to remove McClurkin from the program.

Campaign advisers told gay supporters yesterday an openly gay minister would open this weekend's concerts, The Politico website reported.

Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights organization, said that he told Obama of "our community's disappointment for his decision to continue to remain associated with Rev. McClurkin . . . There is no gospel in Donnie McClurkin's message for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and their allies."

It's a delicate balance Obama must strike: He can't afford to alienate gay supporters, but he can't risk an affront to conservative black voters in an important primary state.

SCOTT HELMAN

The biggest applause line at Sunday night's Republican presidential debate is now the subject of John McCain's latest TV ad in New Hampshire.

The senator from Arizona mocked Hillary Clinton's support for a $1 million federal grant for a museum commemorating Woodstock, the music festival that became a signpost of 1960s counterculture.

The ad shows him saying, "Now my friends, I wasn't there. I'm sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event," as rival Rudy Giuliani guffaws and the audience in Florida rises to its feet.

Then, the punch line, "I was tied up at the time," as the ad shows a photo of him as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

So in a neat rhetorical trick, McCain managed to remind viewers that he is the only leading Republican candidate who served in the military, and at the same time tar Clinton as a purported tax-and-spend Democrat.

FOON RHEE