THE REAL RUDY. Bossman Tomasky and Fred Siegel are debating Giuliani's candidacy and and presidential prospects over at The New Republic, and Mike concludes with a point I want to amplify. "[Giuliani will] need the right's support to function as president," he writes, "and I believe his track record shows us that he'll act accordingly far more often than most people think he will." To repeat a point I made in a recent BloggingHeads with Ross Douthat, the question isn't whether he'll make compromises, it's where he'll want to compromise. Which issues doesn't he care about? And if you look at his record and emphases, it's pretty clear that the issues he's indifferent towards are the exact areas responsible for the myth of his moderation. He'll probably not budge on the War on Terror, where he actually appears to agree with the hardliners on the right. Crime and education, where he's also reliably Republican, are dear to his heart as well. He's not amassed any sort of liberal record on health care, or drug rehabilitation, or affirmative action, or tax policy. He's semi-moderate on immigration, and I expect him to muddle along much as Bush has. But in the end, the entirety of the case for Rudy's moderation comes on social issues and gun control. He's "pro-choice," moderate on gays, and anti-gun. But does anyone who's viewed his record believe he entered politics to protect abortion, codify civil unions, or confiscate fire arms? Of course not. So he'll happily compromise on those issues, promising to appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court and leave semiautomatics to the states. And that'll be that. Just as the 2006 Democrats could oppose NAFTA but be called centrists because they were cool to abortion, Rudy can be an unreconstructed NeoCon and a fiscal conservative but get labeled a moderate because he occasionally dresses in drag (see below). It's a huge shell game that obscures his style of authoritarian neoconservatism, and it's dangerous to ignore.
--Ezra Klein
