Why Is Rudy Smiling?

Yes

, the political rule book says a pro-choice former New York City mayor married to wife No. 3 cannot possibly win the Republican presidential nomination — not as long as the G.O.P. remains the preferred party of small towns and social conservatives.

However, the political rule book has been stuffed into a shredder this year. Come summer of 2008, one or both parties will likely fire it from a confetti gun. A million fluttery pieces of conventional wisdom will swirl around a nominee or nominees once thought to be impossible: a woman, a black man, a guy in his 70s, a Mormon, a Hispanic, a Baptist preacher who used to be 100 lbs. overweight. Who knows? This is the year to bet on something unusual happening, and few things in politics are more unusual than Rudolph Giuliani — "America's mayor," the rock of 9/11, crime fighter and tax cutter.

But what makes his bid for the White House so tricky is the rest of the package, the blue-state mores in the red-state party, along with an operatic personality and a tragicomic domestic life worthy of Boston Legal's Denny Crane. The first marriage, to a second cousin. Extramarital affairs. The messy divorce from his second wife, who learned he was leaving her when he mentioned it at a press conference. Rudy Giuliani is the candidate most likely to field the question, Are you now or have you ever been a prickly, backstabbing tyrant?

He laughs at the suggestion that his stratospheric early poll numbers and laundry list of liabilities leave him nowhere to go but down.

"I've been through it many, many times before," Giuliani tells TIME. "I accept it ... People have every right to explore the positives and the negatives about me. It's true for all these candidates: we all have things we've done right, things we've done wrong." He continues, "That's what this process is about, and you've got to come to peace with it, that it does involve scrutiny, attack, opportunity to explain what you're talking about — and the chance, ultimately, to change things."

The man was not speaking hypothetically. Giuliani had just finished an appearance at the Los Angeles County sheriff's office, where he hoped to remind people of his record on law and order while having his picture taken with California's socially liberal Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of the things some G.O.P. leaders like about Giuliani is that he might appeal to Schwarzenegger moderates, forcing the Democrats to play defense in California and other big-vote states like New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. But reporters didn't ask him about gang violence or the Golden State's 55 electoral votes. The questions were all about Giuliani's strained relationship with his son Andrew.

Clearly, Giuliani isn't naive about the pounding he can expect to take, not after 20 years as a gladiator in the bloody coliseum of the New York media. His every foible, rage and dysfunction have already been exposed by the tabloids in end-of-the-world fonts. But if he's not naive, what is he? The only conclusion we can draw is that he's confident he can survive.

He's not alone. Enough people are willing to place a bet on Giuliani that the candidate expected to have completed more than 50 fund-raising events, from coast to coast, by the end of March. A big number on his first-quarter financial report would help offset his slow start — compared with those of rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney — in building his campaign organization.

What qualifies as a big number? "I don't know what it's going to be," the candidate says. "We're going to try to make it as much as we can."