GIULIANI ISN'T RUNNING FOR THE MAYORALTY OF AMERICA, NOR FOR MISS AMERICA

Something I read somewhere online today said that the most influential lefty bloggers aren't calling for tighter gun control laws, especially "not in Jim Webb's Virginia." More often than not, politicians follow-- usually by being pushed--  rather than lead. The gun lobby is so powerful that many progressives have just given up fighting that battle.

Giuliani thinks the Republican Party ought to do the same thing-- in terms of women's right to choice. Giuliani wants-- must have if he's to win his party's nomination-- support from reflexive, hard right voters who tend to dominate the Republican nominating process. These are no the moderate suburban Republicans worried about taxes and "damned foreigners;" these are the loons and nuts who think God wants Bush to be president and are worried about taxes and damned foreigners. Tomorrow Rudy will come face to face with 'em when he speaks at Pat Robertson's faux "university," Regent.

[Allow me a tangent for a moment. I can't remember who told me this but someone mentioned that Regent University grad Monica Goodling, when faced with the likelihood of prison time, hired a real attorney from a real university, not a graduate of one of the Buy Bull "Schools."]

Anyway... back to Giuliani-- who, I'm sure, will be wearing men's clothes for the occasion-- and his trip to kiss the ring ass of Pat Robertson tomorrow. He may have a problem. Today's NY Daily News explains why:

Giuliani made his sharpest case for moving beyond social issues this weekend in Iowa, telling the Des Moines Register, "Our party is going to grow, and we are going to win in 2008 if we are a party characterized by what we're for, not if we're a party that's known for what we're against." Asked about abortion, he said, "Our party has to get beyond issues like that."

Quite a few serious wingnuts don't like being told by the cross-dressing New Yorker to just get over it. What will he be telling them to do next? Accept gays? Immigrants? Immigrants of color? Allow for gun control? Vote for a president who likes dressing like a woman and prancing around like a nancy-boy? Imagine Putin or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad preparing for a summit with President Giuliani and watching that clip to prepare.

So while a Democratic pollster like Brad Bannon is worried that Giuliani will have cross-over appeal and that he's "the GOP's bets bet to hang on" to the White House, better known than anyone running other than Hillary and the Repug with the best chance to turn some blue states red, wingnuts are still skeptical. Some just have so much irrational, even psychotic, hatred for Hillary that they'd vote for anyone to keep her out of the White House. But died-in-the-wool righties who know more about Giuliani than his epic battle in turning back the Arabian hordes on 9/11, are less enthusiastic. Dobson and Falwell both say they would never support Giuliani and Richard Land says he'd vote for Hillary before voting for him! George Marlin ran for mayor of NYC in 1993 as the nominee of the  Conservative Party. He says he's observed Giuliani for many years and "I can say categorically that he is not now, nor has he ever been, a conservative. In my judgment, his record leaves no doubt that he's a lifelong liberal." Giuliani, "like Hillary, is campaigning" for the presidency "in order to implement lifelong leftist beliefs."

UPDATE: MEANWHILE MR. STRAIGHT TALK IS THE FIRST TO GO NEGATIVE ON HIS FELLOW REPUGS

Here's a flyer Team McCain was handing out in South Carolina. He sure doesn't emphasize his own flips and flops! (Click to enlarge)