The war in Iraq is part of a broader struggle against terrorism that the country will face for a "very, very long time," Rudy Giuliani said in Concord yesterday. But he also said politicians overstate other problems, feeding an inaccurate public perception that the nation is headed down the wrong track.

Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and a poll-topping contender for the Republican nomination for president, made his seventh visit to New Hampshire yesterday, holding a question-and-answer session at New Hampshire Technical Institute and stopping by Robie's Country Store in Hooksett.

Best known nationally for his role in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City, Giuliani has made a pledge to stay "on the offense" against terrorists a cornerstone of his campaign. Yesterday, Giuliani reiterated that point, saying he thinks it's important that politicians make clear the war in Iraq is part of a bigger struggle.

"It's part of a very, very big picture. It's part of something that Americans are going to be facing for a very, very long time," he said. "This is a war against us by Islamic terrorists that's going to be with us for the foreseeable future."

Giuliani also said that the nation is "fundamentally headed in the right direction," an opinion that he said most Americans don't share. Recent polls show a lopsided majority believes the country is on the wrong track. He cited a recent Gallup poll that had 74 percent of respondents unsatisfied with the direction the nation is headed.

Politicians feed that sense, he said. "Sometimes, when we campaign, we make things sound much worse than they actually are," he said. But, he added, "you've got to have some perspective."

"Nobody in the history of the world has had it better than you and me. Nobody. Nobody," he said. "Nobody in the world has it better than you and me."

The nation's struggle to deal with immigration rates illustrates this point, he said. More people want to come to the United States than any other country, he said.

"Would you rather replace that with a country that nobody wants to come to?" he said.

The lifelong Yankees fan also took some time to talk baseball with the largely pro-Red Sox crowd in Concord, pointing out that the All-Star Game last night brought the opposing dynasties together.

"Tonight is the one night I can root for the Red Sox," he joked.

At Robie's Country Store, Giuliani ate a cup of homemade chili and talked to the 89-year-old former owner Dorothy Robie, who told the former mayor about her late husband's storied encounter with Jimmy Carter in 1975. "Lloyd was a little deaf, so he said 'Jimmy who?' " Robie explained.

Giuliani posed for pictures with 20-month-old Liam Hetherman, cooing "la la la" at the baby in the Yankees cap. With two boom mikes, three television cameras and five flash cameras trained on him, Giuliani chatted about George Steinbrenner's lesser-known good deeds with Liam's mother, Kimberly Hetherman, 42, of Hooksett.

Asked about health insurance, Giuliani talked about television sets, saying the plummeting cost of a TV shows the power of the market. Health insurance should be more like home insurance and car insurance, he said, with "empowered consumers" buying their own plans, he said. He said he would provide tax incentives so people could afford coverage.

The idea of universal health care is "paternalistic" and impractical, he said.

"If you try to do socialized medicine, a la Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama or Michael Moore, you're going to end up with a disaster worse than welfare," he said. (next page »)