Many Republicans are questioning whether they want to be represented by the thrice-married Mr Giuliani. And although Ms Nathan has received an upgrade, becoming the latest Mrs Giuliani, she is hardly what the Moral Majority had in mind for First Lady.

Whether the Republicans ought to avert their eyes is the same question that arose in the 1964 and 1968 presidential races when Nelson Rockefeller appeared their best bet.

There was far more to Rockefeller than one of the world's biggest inheritances. At the State Department during the Second World War, he had done much to keep South America out of active connivance with the Axis powers. Despite a privileged upbringing, he proved an effective campaigner and was four times elected Governor of New York state. When he prepared to stand for the presidency in 1964, The New York Times suggested he had as much chance of failing to get the nomination as of going bankrupt.

On the liberal wing of the party, he seemed the Republicans' answer to the Kennedys' allure. Unfortunately, he resembled the Kennedys in his private life too. He had divorced his wife in 1962 and, without much delay, married a divorcée known as Happy. The former senator, Prescott Bush, duly denounced him, asking: “Have we come to the point in our life as a nation where the governor of a great state... can desert a good wife, mother of his grown children, divorce her, then persuade the mother of four youngsters to abandon her husband and their four children and marry the governor?” It was a debilitating blow scored by the grandfather of the current US President.

Bush's charge armed Rockefeller's opponent, the right-wing Arizonan, Barry Goldwater, with the slogan: “Do you want a leader or a lover in the White House?” Goldwater won the nomination and went down to a humiliating defeat to the Democrat Lyndon Johnson. Rockefeller tried again in 1968 but the Republicans opted to run with Richard Nixon.

Instead, in 1974, Rockefeller had to make do with the vice-presidency while Gerald Ford picked up the pieces left by the Watergate scandal. Five years later Rockefeller suffered a fatal heart attack while alone with his young aide, Megan Marshack. Those who had taken most delight in blocking his ambitions smirked at the circumstantial evidence and whispered gleefully: “I told you so!”

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