WOULD SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES accept a candidate who was semi-estranged from two of his children? The question arises because of reports that Rudy Giuliani is not on the best of terms with his son Andrew and daughter Caroline.

The answer is that indeed they might, as they already have, many years earlier. Does the name Patti Davis ring bells? The girl who ran away with a rock star to defy her father; who changed her name so she wouldn’t carry the name of her father, and who later wrote two books–or three, it’s hard to remember–that were both a Mommie-and-Daddy-Dearest, dragging both her parents over hot, glowing, coals? Estrangement barely begins to describe this. And there was her brother, who went from a career in ballet to a pseudo-career as a political commentator, a job that consisted of tearing down his father’s beliefs and his party, to the continued delight of his liberal audience. Did you say estranged?