Justin:
Your piece is ( as usual ) very well reasoned. I am a conservative Republican and a conservative Catholic. I respect and admire our Bishop and support his strong defense of human life. Having said that, I think Mitt, Fred, Newt and Rudy are the Republicans that stand a reasonable chance of winning the general election. I may be wrong, but I think Rudy stands the best chance. I believe his popularity, name recogniton and respect among Independents is the highest of the 4 candidates. If I am wrong, I would be very happy to have any of the other 3 serve as President. I tend to agree more with the other 3 candidates on social policy. What would be terribly disappointing would be to have ANY Democrat win. We now have 4 reliable judicial conservatives ( strict constructionists )on the Supreme Court. If we can replace 1 or 2 more of the liberal ( activist ) judges, our country will enjoy more freedom and security for a long time. Although, one can argue that a pro-choice Republican President will not use the bully-pulpit for the causes that we support, they ARE capable of appointing judges that will allow the people of this country to weigh in on important social issues. I believe Rudy Giuliani will appoint strict constructionists because liberal judges will hurt the policies he supports in the defense of America and maintaining a strong, growing economy. He has, in fact, stated this on numerous occasions. The new Supreme Court has rendered opinions of late that are supported by conservatives of all stripes. They are the types of opinions that Rudy Giuliani and most Republicans support. I think Rudy Giuliani represents our best chance of getting another Alito or Scalia. For this reason he gets my support.

1. I have come to believe that Rudy cannot win the general election. If he wins the Republican nomination, there will be an independent strongly pro-life candidate who will skim off enough votes to prevent Rudy from winning an electoral vote majority.

2. Realistically, the most likely of the Justices to be replaced next would be Stevens who is in his late eighties. He is firmly in the liberal block. I'd like to believe that Rudy would appoint a reliable conservative to replace Stevens, but face it, Rudy would not feel compelled to appoint a firmly anti-Roe Justice.

3. I know that some conservatives have turned on President Bush; they ought to think about what kind of Justice John Kerry would have appointed in place of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Those appointments are a legacy of which any true conservative should be quite proud.

Hi!
It is really too early to tell who will win the GOP nomination in 2008.I plan to run for delegate in the RI Republican Presidential Primary.
Frankly, a cople of things:
1.The big deal made about the primary date in Rhode Island fell through.It seemed to have bi-partisan support.What really happened?It did not make it past the state Senate I understand.
2.The front loading of the primaries/caucuses with a lot of contests before March may make the Rhode Island weigh-in in the March,2008; really insignificant!
3.No candidate is perhaps perfect.
4.2008 while it appears to be difficult for the GOP is not necessarily hopeless.In 1958 the Republicans took a shellacking in Congressional Elections but came close to winning the White House in 1960 and the winner's (Kennedy) party, actually lost seats in Congress!
Regards,
Scott

Current general election polls show that Giuliani, McCain and Thompson are all in single digits against both Clinton and Obama. That tells me that any of those three can win the general election. Romney has a longer road if he were to win the primary.

McCain's fundraising appears to have stalled and he only has about 5 million left, less than half of what Giuliani and Romney had going into the end of the quarter. Romney also put in some of his own money this quarter, meaning he was probably behind his internal fundraising goal.

Newt Gingrich has said he will sit out the election until he see how Thompson fares. If Thompson isn't able to put together a solid effort, Gingrich said he'll jupmp in.

Thompson is the wild card. Giuliani, McCain and Romney have already spent millions of dollars and Thompson hasn't spent a dime, yet he is in second place in most polls and first place in the Rasmussen poll.

Sean does a good job of putting out the Giuliani talking points, but I agree with brassband. McCain and Thompson are more likely to appoint strict contructionists to the Supreme Court than Giuliani.

Giuliani has made it clear that he is pro-choice, so why would he want to ensure that conservative gets appointed to the Supreme Court when he could appoint a moderate like himself with far less effort?

I must admit, I'm torn on this question. There are a couple of things that attract me to Giuliani:

His right attitude about the war and fighting terrorism. and

His continual references to Ronald Reagan.

I find him credible in these areas, but being avidly pro-life, I do struggle with this question. I'd prefer it that Giuliani be pro-life. I even believe it is possible for him to make a conversion similar to George H. W. Bush's conversion - he was pro choice in 1976.

Giuliani also claims he would appoint originalists to the court. I believe him. Again, maybe I'm naive. My sense here is that he is not an ideologue on this point, but merely supported "pro-abortion" causes for pragmatic reasons when he ran for Mayor of NY.

Thompson would be my first choice, but I must say I find Giuliani attractive and compelling.

Chuck,
Giuliani went beyond saying he was pro-choice and called for taxpayer funded abortion. His wife at the time was also a major financial donor to Planned Parenthood in NYC. I don't know why anyone would think he would support pro-life nominees to the Supreme Court.

I support Giuliani's approach to terrorism, but his approach is exactly the same as the approach recommended by McCain and Romney. I don't know Thompson's, but I'm willing to bet it is the same.

Everyone is invoking Reagan, so that's not different either.

The only real difference between Giuliani and the others is that he happened to be mayor of NYC on 9/11.

He showed strong leadership in the immediate aftermath (as opposed to Mayor Nagin in New Orleans after Katrina), but some of the groups you'd expect to strongly support him--such as NYC firefighters--now say he let them down once the cameras were off. Of course, nobody is perfect.

I don't think there is any question that Giuliani has strong leadership characteristics, but he is a definitely a moderate, not a conservative.

The question is whether Giuliani's perceived personal leadership qualities can convince conservatives to overlook his left of center political beliefs.

"merely supported "pro-abortion" causes for pragmatic reasons when he ran for Mayor of NY."

Chuck, can you support a politician who turns "pragmatic" on an important issue when the chips are down? I understand the political realities of running for office in a notably liberal city like New York.
But setting aside the specific issue for the moment, don't you sort of want someone who is going to uphold the principle at all times, not just when it's easy?