This is about as good as it gets for a conservative presidential candidate pledging to be as tough on national crime as he was tough on New York crime as mayor. And before he was mayor of New York? He was prosecuting the mob. And they didn’t like that:

“The bosses of New York’s five Mafia families in the mid-1980s came a hair-trigger away from sanctioning a hit on then-federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani, according to bombshell FBI records made public yesterday. The mob bosses decided by a 3-to-2 margin not to try to whack the future mayor and presidential candidate. But before cooler heads prevailed, at least two of the dons argued fervently that the mob-busting U.S. attorney should sleep with the fishes.”

Rudy almost got whacked? And even the Sopranos decided not to mess with him? Giuliani, the crimefighter, almost offed? That’ll give him a little extra cache in the race for the White House.