Rudy Giuliani has formed a Presidential exploratory committee.
Tradesports shows John McCain as the favorite for the GOP nomination in 2008, and there's clearly good reason for that. After McCain's 50%, the next two contenders are Romney and Giuliani with around 13%. After those three, there is a significant dropoff.
It's seeming less and less likely that Ronald Reagan is going to come back to life and sweep the primaries. Rather, it looks like these are our candidates.
I don't know enough about Romney, despite the fact that he has a strong following in certain parts of the blogosphere. But if I have a choice of two not-really-conservatives, Giuliani has a big leg up over McCain, in my book. And all my conservative friends agree.
It seems that the job of a blogger is to talk to 3 friends and extrapolate national trends (Mickey said that somwhere). Doing that tells me that if Giuliani defers to the conservative views of the majority of Republicans on abortion, gay rights, and gun control, he will be the nominee.
Analysts have said all along that Giuliani is too socially liberal to get the Republican nomination. But most conservatives have a strong aversion to McCain, and he is doing nothing to win them over. To me, this creates a clear opening for Giuliani. I believe he has more credibility with conservatives than does McCain, and stands a fair chance against him in the primaries.
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Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Giuliani Jumps In
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4 comments:
Tradesports pools conventional wisdom--that Giuliani is liberal. The polling numbers suggest that the Republican nomination is going to quickly come down to Giuliani vs. McCain:
http://www.pollingreport.com/2008.htm#misc
The conventional wisdom doesn't seem to recognise how clearly McCain damaged himself within the party with McCain-Feingold and his off-the-cuff derogation of the religious right.
I think the real GOP race will be between Giuliani and Romney, two northeasterners who have a shot at picking up purple-state moderates but who haven't alienated Republican primary voters like McCain.
In addition to McCain's damaged brand and his age (he'll be 72 in 2008), he also faces the problem of being a Senator in the minority for the next two years. He will have lots of "no win" votes on populist Democratic initiatives. Like 2000, I think he'll quickly crater after a strong showing in New Hampshire.
If you insist on an abortion litmus test, you're no better than the dems, frankly. As long as abortion is the top issue for republicans, they will struggle to become a majority party.
All Rudy G should say on abortion and gays is that it's not the job of POTUS to deal with those issues, so his personal beliefs are irrelevant to the race.
Gun control is potentially a bigger problem, especially here in the South.
I think it strains reason to suggest that gun control should be a litmus test but abortion should not. Both are important constitutional issues, and both are extremely important politically, in Republican primaries.
On abortion, I think Giuliani needs to say that he will appoint judges who are strict constiutionalists in the mold of Scalia, and that he will not be an advocate for positions that are outside the GOP mainstream.
The good news is, I think that's the right thing politically AND policy-wise.
The Editor
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