Thursday, March 1, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.
Rudy Giuliani is having a fundraiser at a real estate developer's house, and the former chairwoman of the Republican Party will be there. It's a simple story, and a clean one, but somehow, just a few hours before, it was a seedy tale.
The phones began ringing, and the doom of Giuliani's nascent presidential campaign seemed imminent.
Here's the story the whispering political types were spreading around town:
Giuliani was supposed to hold a fundraiser at the home of Earlene Forsythe, former chairwoman of the state Republican Party, until his people realized Forsythe's husband is under indictment. Uh-oh.
Move it to another house in the neighborhood, that of Roger Norman.
Except Norman - or maybe it's Norman's father? - is involved in the brothel business. That's a legal enterprise in rural Nevada, but oh, man, does this look bad.
Giuliani's got enough problems with the social conservatives, what with being pro-abortion rights, twice-divorced and having lived with a couple of gay guys while mayor of New York.
Imagine this story if it hit the news wires. Nevada fundraiser, indictment, brothel.
The New York Post headline would scream, "Rudy's Nevada Madame!" John McCain would have some witty quip for Don Imus. And the Mormon Mitt Romney would look even more sainted.
Except, it doesn't check out.
Here's the truth, told here in an attempt to silence the buzz:
The Utah business partner of Steve Wark, a Nevada political consultant with ties to social conservatives, asked him to organize a fundraiser for Giuliani.
Wark's mother-in-law is Forsythe, the former Republican chairwoman whose husband was indeed indicted last year for allegedly giving an undercover agent human growth hormone.
Wark said he never considered hosting the event at the Forsythes' because their house is being remodeled.
He asked Roger Norman. Norman's father's business partner does run a brothel next to the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, but Norman is estranged from his father, so the two can't be fairly linked. As such, neither can Giuliani and the brothel.
So where's the story?
Well, there isn't one, but when the stakes are so high - the presidency - and everyone sees a potential weakness in Giuliani's family-values deficit, people will say anything.
Wark was irritated by it all. Rivals, especially people jealous of his success, will do anything to get at him and his family, he said.
"This has nothing to do with the presidential level," he said. "This has to do with a small group of small-minded people clawing for some type of political legitimacy."
Fair enough.
Still, the episode highlights how fragile a presidential campaign can be, and Giuliani may have found himself a little close to the wrong neighborhood after dark.
Pete Ernaut, a Republican consultant and lobbyist, emphasized that he hasn't been talking about Giuliani or this incident, but he said, "It all comes down to good staff work. It's very important for these presidential candidates to have good political professionals on the ground who do solid research, and that's more important than having marquee names."
The first rule of political consulting, he said, "Raise clean money."
The marquee names might then follow. In this case, Wark says, the guest list includes Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Association, and actor Tom Selleck.
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