Hearts, Not Diamonds

It recently occurred to me that Rudy Giuliani is approaching his presidential run in pretty much the same way that I approach a game of Hearts. See, I'm legendarily bad at cards--can't count them, can't read faces, can't even always remember which red cards are which. I just know that on those rare occasions when I manage to shoot the moon, it feels really great. So I try to do it every time I see myself with some high cards, no matter how many or whether they're even in the same suit.

This is Rudy all over. He's got some high cards...but he's not holding a winning hand; he's just hoping that he can run it out so long that no one picks up a trick even by accident. Let's review:

Ace: the country loved him on 9/11 and still feels very warmly about him.
King: as a social moderate, he has more crossover appeal than most Republicans; a Democratic city elected him twice.
Queen: he's a tough guy, and the country appears to like tough guys.

So far, so good, right?

Six: his second term was marred by scandal. Mostly racially-tinged scandal that might help him among red state racists, but scandal nonetheless.

That's a big drop. And then:

Four: he's got zero experience pertinent to running a global superpower--no foreign policy, no domestic policy on a grand scale, no nothing.
Three: he's way out of touch with the base of his party on social issues and is vulnerable on the right, both in the primary and in the general (Buchanan on the Reform ticket?).
Three: he married, if briefly, his cousin. Ew.
Two: he treated his second wife so poorly, and did so so openly, that his own kids hate his guts. Lest you think he's going to make amends, Google "Caroline Giuliani graduation." Yeah, that was last month.
Two: NYC firefighters, 9/11 rescue workers, and victims' families are all aligning against him. That's Swift Boat on crack, and with the added benefit of being fair criticism.
Two: everyone he's associated with seems to be a crook or a pervert. And the guy's Italian, for crying out loud; people were perfectly willing to treat Cuomo as a mobster without the slightest bit of evidence of wrongdoing; how many indictments can one candidate handle?
Joker: okay, if you've ever entertained the slightest notion of living in the White House, how do you let yourself be filmed in drag repeatedly?

For the first three cards--assuming they're all one suit, of course--Rudy's going to ride high. But eventually he's going to be seen putting down a two, and then he'll be stuck with the Queen of Spades. (But I shouldn't talk about Judi that way.)