This is pretty hilarious. The Rudy campaign is so determined to prove his conservative credentials that it's now circulating a quote from a black newspaper describing him as an "evil" conservative -- and they're presenting this as a plus.

Rudy is currently under heavy assault by a New York conservative named George Marlin, a longtime Rudy nemesis who's launched a Web site called "Rudy's Really Liberal". Marlin is trying to educate conservatives across the country about Rudy's true liberal nature.

Now the Rudy camp has hit back. Via The Politicker, the Albany Times Union's political blog reports that one of the things Rudy's campaign is doing to rebut this attack is the following:

The campaign also helpfully provided a bunch of quotes from New York papers that demonstrate Giuliani’s conservative credentials, such as this one from The Amsterdam News in 2000 (before Giulani dropped out of the U.S. Senate race):

“[Giuliani’s] Only Hope For An Overwhelming Victory In Upstate New York Would Be To Remain As He Is: A Hard-Nosed, Evil, Racist Republican Conservative.”

Well, if someone is calling you a "hard-nosed, evil, racist Republican conservative," you must be doing something right. Or so Rudy advisers appear to believe, anyway.