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The fact that Giuliani could win social conservatives by defending the right to disapprove of homosexuality and attacking Roe v. Wade doesn't mean that he will. If he does, however, his campaign might well prove unstoppable. It will be interesting to see how he chooses to proceed.

The money quote. He is right that Giuliani is a fighter, and he's right that a fighter is of greater value than someone with the right opinions who won't fight.

On the war, I trust Giuliani to be a fighter. On social issues, I haven't seen anything to make me think Giuliani will fight for the moral underpinnings of civilization if it means going up against Roe v Wade, for example. The writer's analysis is sharp and clear but probably wishful thinking.

I am not one of the ones who will write Giuliani off without hearing him out, as I have said the war is my bottom line and on the war I trust Giuliani to fight.

But on every other issue I consider him to be a Lieberman Republican, and if he's president we'll have 4 or 8 years of rear-guard fighting on every social issue we care about. I do not trust him to put constitutionalists on the Supreme Court, and thats almost as important as the war if we are to survive as a constitutional republic.

At this stage there are a couple of other people I believe will also fight, and who agree with me on most social issues as far as I can tell; I am supporting Hunter, and when Gingrich runs his mouth, I like what I hear. I haven't forgotten how he screwed up during impeachment, but I also haven't forgotten the shellacking he gave Clinton when he enacted his "Contract for America" over Clinton's furious resistance. Clinton was reduced to taking credit for Gingrich's project.

Lieberman is very liberal on every issue but the war.

Rudy is a fiscal conservative and a REAL law and order guy.

For social conservative issues, the only thing the president can impact is the judges and Rudy said he would appoint judges like Scalia and Alito and Ted Olson vouches for him. That should be good enough for everyone.

Reagan, Bush I, Bush II, were/are staunch pro lifers and the only thing they were able to do is to appoint the right kind of judges, and even they didn't get each one right. So the fact that they were prolife didn't really have any more impact, than what Rudy will do in appointing judges who focus on the law, instead of activism.

"At this stage there are a couple of other people I believe will also fight, and who agree with me on most social issues as far as I can tell; I am supporting Hunter, and when Gingrich runs his mouth, I like what I hear."

I am as wary of Hunter's record of big government over spending as I am of Rudy's social liberalism. I like Newt, but fear that, in his new incarnation, he would not mind an expanded role for government as long as he could apply the same technology driven efficiencies that make the private sector so much more effective. I anxiously await for Fred Thompson to enter the race.