"Is this what you expected, McCain?"
"No. This is just the beginning."
Posted on 03/13/2007 2:27:45 PM PDT by Spiff
Despite former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's lead in the polls, Republican insiders say the GOP base is so divided and Giuliani's ascension is so fragile that the party's presidential nomination for 2008 is totally up for grabs.
"I've never seen the party so split," says a GOP strategist with close ties to evangelical Christians.
Giuliani, despite his strong image from 9/11, consistently falls well short of a majority. The latest CNN survey gives him a 34-18 lead over John McCain in the race for the Republican nomination.
"Contrary to the view inside the Beltway," the strategist says, "we don't have anybody who is the torch bearer or who is remotely agreed upon."
There is also a growing belief among social conservatives that the race isn't starting too early, as some pundits and White House political architect Karl Rove have said. Instead, the GOP rank and file welcomes the early start of the campaign because they will need a long time to assess all the candidates and see how they operate under pressure. Many social conservative activists argue that Giuliani's lead in the polls will begin melting away as the year wears on and as conservatives scrutinize his liberal record on abortion, gun control, and gay rights.
"For very good reasons, the base will say 'no thanks' to Rudy," says the strategist. "Eventually there will be a reckoning."
He sees the start of that reckoning in the negative ripples among religious conservatives caused by recent news stories about the distant relationship between Giuliani and his son and about Giuliani's three marriages.
((((STOP RUDY PING))))
Fred Thompson needs to run. That (among other things) will stop Rudy.
They know its fragile thats why they resort to phony polls and lies, trying to make us think he is the "only"one to save America.
I wish I had the confidence Hunter could win FL, OH and PA.
It's more likely that Fred Thompson will wind up Rudy's VP than it is likely he will stop Rudy in the primaries.
Wow, that was hard-hitting, Spiff. Mort Zuckerman's U.S. News & World Report quoting a single unnamed evangelical source! OOOOOHHHH....
Lame. Try again.
I don't have a crystal ball, but I think you're wrong.
..somebody has been visiting FR...
That's why the MSM love's Rudy so much.
From fragile to collapsed by end of summer.
Prediction: None of the "RINO THREE" will be the nominee come November 2008.
When Andrew Giuliani outed Rudy as a miserable father with a possessive, domineering third wife who demands Rudy stay away from his kids, America spoke loud and clear.
88% of those polled said they had a problem with Rudy not attending his son's graduation.
Now that's a poll with political punch (not A Julie Annie faked-up, manufactured poll).
We are seeing more and more stories like this from LSM outlets of late. Giuliani seems to be the candidate they fear most, and for good reason.
Rudy's intrusion into the Republican party is a prelude to the decline of the American republic, the two-party system, and the systems of checks and balances the founders built into our system of government.
The Rudyoids stalk conservatives, demean them at every turn, and sneer at the issues conservatives hold dear, even threatening conservatives' free speech. This is only the prelude to the larger plan----to throw social conservatives off the Repub lifeboat, to trash the Constitution, so that liberals control all facets of government.
That's decidedly not what the Founders intended.
Rudy and his liberal control-freaks are a distinct threat to the two-party system, and to the system of checks and balances the founders built into our system of government.
Giuliani's intrusion into Repub politics is the initial step in the decline of the American republic as we know it.
"Prediction: None of the "RINO THREE" will be the nominee come November 2008."
I think you are correct. If someone like Fred Thompson jumps in....McRudyRomney are history.
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