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If it is true for these four states, then a conservative cannot win the general in November.

Absolute nonsense. Mr. Thompson has much broader appeal than your cited example, specifically to moderates and swing voters.

The bleeding in the party must be stopped, and if that means we lose good conservatives like you to get more secular suburban voters then I guess that's what we'll have to do.

This denotes ignorance in the extreme, and is despicably insulting. I'm a moderate conservative with a distinct secular flair who believes in creation and does not subscribe to any religion. The stereotyping is typical and certainly not unexpected, and you display a lack of understanding of precisely who you really are trying to appeal to. I am a suburbanite as well, I'm in the upper middle class and I have no intention of voting for RINO Rudy.

Also, you're basically admitting that you are turning your back on religious conservatives, in a country which is around %90 Christian, to pander to some must have 'secular' moderate block of voters that you must sway in order to win any future election? That's pretty interesting, and absurd, to say the least, and sounds like projection of Mr. Romney's primary fault, which certainly does not afflict Mr. Thompson.

And the "we'll" sounds like you are part of the Republican leadership that has lost its way and is ditching the one who came to the dance with you. I hope that's not the case for if it is, the Republican party is done and will fade away as other parties have in the past.

In the end, don't try to feed me a shit sandwich and call it roast beef.

There is a tendency for people to think that everyone else would do what they would do in a given situation. You say you would not vote for Rudy and you are upper middle class secular. Therefore, no one else would either. That is not evidence. It is a sample size of one.

Evidence is solid polling data that establishes your premise. The public polling data that are available (Quinnipiac, Rasmussen, Gallup, Zogby, etc.) show that Rudy already gets about half the vote to Hillary's 42 percent. It also shows Rudy with very low negatives and Hillary with very high negatives, which means that the 8 percent undecided are more likely to go Giuliani's way (or, like you, would not vote for either candidate, which doesn't hurt Rudy). Landslide Giuliani in the general election. That is what the data says today.

Yes, it might change. But someone will have to dramatically increase Rudy's negatives to accomplish it, and attacks from the right are not likely to do that, at least in a general election. No one else, Republican or Demoncrat, comes anywhere close to this level electability. No one else has the money, or the capability to raise the money to beat Giuliani in the primary, except McCain. So Giuliani is going to be the nominee.

You'd better get used to it.