Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack has publicly ridiculed the private life of a leading Republican presidential candidate and the Democratic presidential hopeful Vilsack’s backing apparently is giving him free reign to do so.
Vilsack went on a New York television station Wednesday and laughed when asked about former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. “He’s got a very interesting past,” Vilsack said.
This past spring Vilsack ended his own presidential campaign and endorsed Hillary Clinton’s bid for the White House. He was in New York Wednesday to introduce Clinton at a fundraiser near Times Square. That morning during an interview on a New York television station, Vilsack was asked whether he was worried about “all the scandals” connected to Clinton’s presidential campaign and how she might match up in the general election against Republican Giuliani.
“What’s funny about that, governor?” the TV questioner asked. “There’s a lot that the rest of the country’s going to get to know about Mayor Giuliani that the folks in New York City know, but the rest of the nation doesn’t know,” Vilsack replied.
“Such as?” the interviewer asked.”Well, you know, I can’t even get into the number of marriages and…the relationship he has with his children and what kind of circumstance New York was in before September 11 and whether or not he could have even been re-elected as mayor prior to September 11,” said Vilsack.
When he was New York’s mayor, Giuliani had a very public split from his second wife as he began his relationship with the woman who was ultimately to become his current wife. Vilsack’s candidate has had her own marital problems aired in public. Senator Clinton said during an interview on CNN that she intends as a candidate to focus on a “positive agenda.”
During a telephone interview with Iowa reporters, Clinton was asked whether she’d told Vilsack in private that she didn’t appreciate his comments about Giuliani’s marriages.
This is all she had to say: “Well, I think he’s more than capable of speaking for himself.”
Here’s the link to the video of Vilsack’s appearance on NY1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRg1SU3CAP0 .