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You wrote, "1975: Jimmy who? 1991: Bill who?"

Jimmy Carter's election was a fluke of history, a reaction to what was perceived as Republican malfeasance and ineptitude: Watergate overall, Ford's pardon of Nixon, Spiro Agnew's disgraceful resignation, little Whip Inflation Now buttons, the helicopters scurrying from the embassy roof in Saigon...

Truly, anyone could've beaten Ford. It just happened to be Jimmy Carter. The senior Bush, on the other hand, alienated the base of his own party by breaking his no-new-tax pledge and 'realpolitik' bungling of what should've been total military victory in Iraq, rather than the first round in a damaging, drawn-out ordeal.

Both Ford and Bush were damaged goods, electoral pushovers. A conclusion one can draw from their respective defeats is that relative political unknowns can win major elections if the incumbent has a seriously compromised candidacy from the beginning: Ford had Nixon, Bush the Elder had Saddam.

Hillary, on the other hand, does not have Bill. She has carefully divorced herself from her role in the more unsavory and unsuccessful aspects of her husband's administration, and has done a masterful job of repositioning herself as a centrist and establishing an identity distinct from her role as former first lady; i.e., the Junior Senator from New York. Is this repositioning of hers a blatantly transparent, cynical ploy? Of course it is. She banks on the notoriously short-attention span of the voting public, and knows that in a largely evenly split election, she can conceivably peel off enough easily swayed votes to win.

So yeah, the GOP needs a known quantity likely to draw the middle. In my view, a Guiliani candidacy would be a good move strategically, especially if Guiliani re-thinks his views on issues--like abortion--that energize the conservative base, and chooses a solid conservative as a running mate, one ideally with strong foreign policy credentials to counter Rudy's lack of expertise in that regard. I personally adore Condoleeza Rice, but doubt she wants to wade in the muck of a presidential campaign.