US:For a moment, at a town-hall campaign stop here on the eastern edge of Iowa, Rudy Giuliani's face clouded over.
A man in the high school multipurpose room asked him if he was a "traditional practising Catholic". Giuliani did not pause.
"My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not-so-good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests," he said in a controlled, low voice.
"That would be a much better way to discuss it," he said. "That's a personal discussion, and they have a much better sense of how good a Catholic I am or how bad a Catholic I am."
That question, and Giuliani's answer, illustrate the fine line the former New York mayor is walking as he tries to sell himself in conservative Iowa in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
In speeches in small towns and large here, Giuliani has emphasised his CV as a hard-boiled prosecutor, a tough mayor who tamed New York city and a terrorism expert.
Yet he also tries to show his personal side, picking and choosing when to reveal personal details. At a restaurant in Maquoketa he made a point about his healthcare policies by talking about how he had survived prostate cancer but his father had not.
Giuliani insists that questions about his personal life are relevant only if they involve his performance as a public official.
Despite the stresses of his colourful and troubled past Giuliani insists his performance has never been affected.
But he finds that his message of the day sometimes is lost in questions about personal issues he just as soon would not discuss.
On his five campaign stops here yesterday, his message about stopping drugs got lost in questions about his daughter and religious life.
At the start of the day, reporters in Davenport pressed him on reports that his 17-year-old daughter Caroline had shown support for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. He refused to comment, asking instead, don't you think we should be talking about drugs? - ( LA Times-Washington Post service)