When Rudolph Giuliani made his way through Iowa on a pre-campaign swing the other day, reporters didn’t recognize the woman at his side. She was Anne Dickerson, who recently signed on as his top fund-raiser and was on her first road trip with the new boss.

Ms. Dickerson was in high demand for the 2008 presidential cycle, given her tremendous success recruiting legions of $200,000 Rangers and $100,000 Pioneers for President Bush in the 2004 crash for cash. Mr. Giuliani planned to announce her new job later this month.

Ms. Dickerson is spending a lot of time with Mr. Giuliani and his team. After the Iowa trip, she spent a day or two in New York with Mr. Giuliani’s staff.

Ms. Dickerson came on board to build a warchest for Mr. Giuliani’s political action committee, Solutions America. A New York City cocktail fund-raiser scheduled for June 13 will likely fetch millions of dollars — after all, this is the first time America’s Mayor has passed the hat since he earned the unofficial title.

Contributions to presidential campaigns are limited to $2,100 for the primary cycle. Virginia PACs like Mr. Giuliani’s have emerged as the key way for candidates to avoid those limits during the unofficial exploratory phase of their campaigns.

Mr. Giuliani said on Monday that he is determining whether he has a chance to win. Presumably that means he’ll run if he thinks the White House is within reach.

Look for Mr. Giuliani to try to redefine the scope of political debate. He can’t win Republican votes if social issues take center stage — he’s pro-life, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, anti-gun control, and is married for the third time. New Yorkers don’t play well in the rest of the country, and Mr. Giuliani is the embodiment of the heartland’s worries about our urban values.

Mr. Giuliani needs to make voters think about themselves rather than policy issues. I remember covering a press conference with Mr. Giuliani late in the summer of 2001 where he suggested New Yorkers think about their “enlightened self-interest” when picking his successor. In essence, he was saying that people should think about what matters to them, factor in who will make their lives better, and cast their votes accordingly.

Responsibility for shaping that message is now in the highly capable hands of John Avlon, who is known as Fipp and is widely considered a leading expert on centrism in American politics. Mr. Avlon, a New York Sun columnist until today, was Mr. Giuliani’s chief speechwriter and deputy communications director in City Hall.

The message won’t go anywhere without money to promote the vision. Ms. Dickerson’s presence on the Giuliani team should help bring in cash from what Mr. Bush calls “the base.”

With Ms. Dickerson’s cash, the campaign should be hiring more staff soon.

Mr. Giuliani will probably run into Governor Pataki on the presidential path sooner rather than later. But for the next week, the rivals-turned-buddies (likely to be rivals again at this rate) should be okay. Mr. Pataki is off to California and then to Kentucky for the Derby in the next few days, while Mr. Giuliani’s next campaign trip brings him to battleground Michigan and must-win Ohio next week.