Hey, chuckles, who’d you vote for in ’92 and ’96?

In a cover story on Giuliani in this week’s New York Observer, Rangel went after Giuliani in unusually personal ways, expressing confidence that Giuliani’s frontrunning status will fade either because of the former mayor’s liberal positions on social issues or the operatic drama of his personal life.

“Referring to Andrew Giuliani’s reportedly distant relationship with his father since the ugly bust-up of Mr. Giuliani’s marriage with Donna Hanover,” the article says, “Mr. Rangel said it was because ‘sons respect and admire their fathers, but they love their mothers against cheating goddamn husbands.’ … Rangel said he regretted that all the personal problems surfaced so soon in the electoral process. ‘I’m sorry this damned thing turned out so early because, really, just like [embattled former Giuliani aide Bernard] Kerik, it would have bombed his ass out.'”…

Asked Saturday afternoon outside Oak Park Elementary School in Des Moines, Iowa, if she had any comment on Rangel’s remarks, Clinton tersely said, “I don’t.”

Yeah, I’ll bet she doesn’t. Does the left dare try to demagogue Giuliani on his personal life with the Clenis’s wife currently leading the polls? They do tend to have epiphanies like this come election time: in 2004 we found out that only a man who’d served in the military was properly qualified to lead a nation during wartime. In 2008, though? Not so much. Maybe they’re having a similar “awakening” about privacy and infidelity now. Although I suspect that awakening will be much more profound if a Clinton isn’t topping the ticket come next fall.

It’s tempting to assume Hillary wants no part of attacks like these, but if that’s true, why was her Iowa errand boy also recently spotted talking this point up? Exit question: Is the Clinton camp actually preparing to play Hillary’s status as a wronged woman against the GOP? Feel the pain of a woman betrayed by the man she loves, America — and blame Rudy Giuliani for it.