Don't ask me how I came to be leafing through the current issue of Complex, a magazine written for people half my age, but I found this In a Q&A with Mark Ecko, the fashion designer (and publisher of the magazine):

WHICH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IS THE MOST HIP-HOP?

Giuliani 100 percent. He takes no prisoners; he took down the entire mob. He's easily vilified. He's the most gangster. But I wouldn't vote for him; he scares me.

Argh. I'm grateful for that last sentence, but why are Ecko and so many other people in awe of this wizened little psychopath? Why do they think he's larger than life?

(Alicia Keys is also asked. She picks Obama.)

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UPDATE: dnA sees Ecko's comments as a white guy's view of hip-hop as nothing but thuggery. Yeah -- romanticized thuggery. It's a view (shared by a lot of white people, I think) that cops and criminals are two sides of the same coin, that they hurt people and get away with it. That's a potent, unstated selling point for Rudy with a lot of voters.