Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Thursday dismissed his liberal social views, his divorces and his former aide’s imbroglio as irrelevant to a presidential bid.

Now, my first thought when reading that sentence was, “YEAHHH!!! Right buddy!”

But, after putting aside my knee jerk reaction and intuitively analyzing how this race could play out, Rudy might be right.

“You have to feel inside yourself there is something special I can do _ some kind of special experience I have had or background,” said Giuliani, who became known as “America’s mayor” for his response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

And that’s the point I am getting to. Giuliani is “America’s mayor.” Despite his liberal stances on many social issues he is highly admired by Republicans in both wings of the party, centrist and conservative. Polls have shown him having approval ratings in the 70 percentile even among social conservatives. I do believe that once the primary debates get going these issues will grind away at those numbers when they are brought to the forefront, but how much will it really hurt him?

The question that remains to be answered is, can Giuliani’s 9-11 reputation supercede his political faults?