by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
Like Ed Kilgore, I'm having a hard time trying to unpack what's going on in the Republican Primary field. It's hard to forecast how any of the Three Stooges will win the hearts and minds of both the anti-tax wing of the party and the pro-life wing of the party, especially the frontrunner in the national polls, Rudy Giuliani (R-NY). Kilgore thinks that Giuliani's liabilities with are insurmountable:
At a minimum, Giuliani is going to face a nasty,scorched-earth demonization effort far more intense than the one thatbrought down John McCain in 2000, while providing a lot more rawmaterial to work with than McCain ever did. You can count on it.
On the surface, that seems plausible. But there's a key missing ingredient: who's going to make the case against Giuliani? McCain and Romney both have records and public statements that, were Giuliani not running, would make them the social moderates in the race. And even Fred Thompson has undergone an election year conversion. But it's still very early in the race, so each candidate has plenty of time to convince the Republican electorate that he's the one who's really seen the light, and the others' are just faking it to win an election.
