Replies

“To take just one example, I have a hard time imagining the actual mechanics of a Giuliani nomination.”

“Would there be a Republican party, as we understand it, left standing afterwards?”

Let me start by saying that so far I’m neutral for the 08 election. However I’ve been watching the races shape up, and as an impartial observer, here’s what I think is happening.
I think that the moderate or liberal wing of the GOP is trying to separate the values voters from the party. I also think the reason for this is simply long term pragmatic political strategy. The states that are solidly made up of values voters are the southern states and the western mountain states. (I’m not saying that there aren’t plenty of values voters in other states, so this isn’t flame-bait) just that the southern and western states are majority values voters.
With the immigration of retiring baby boomers from the northeast and the west coast to the southern and western states (VA, CO, and to some extent ID, and NC)
The Republicans from the west coast, and north east seem to be more socially moderate/liberal. They mostly seem to care about tax cuts, education, and healthcare. Not God, guns, and gays. Take VA. Jim Webb ran as a conservative democrat, by the time his first term is up there will have been 6 more years worth of socially liberal/fiscal conservatives that have moved into VA. The same goes for the other “border states” that are turning more and more purple as more people move into them from back east or out west.
The bedrock red areas are getting smaller geographically.
If the moderate/liberal wing of the GOP can separate the values voters, they will be in a much better position over the next 15-20 years to re-take the re-aligned southern states, with major gains in the midwest, west coast, and northeast. It’s just my opinion, but it’s my belief that the national leadership of the GOP doesn’t really plan on winning this year anyway, so why not run Rudy? He appeals to the moderate/liberal Republicans, and has the added plus of further alienating the values voters, who the moderates want to purge anyway. I think the GOP is willing to gamble that with moderate/liberal candidates, they can more than make up for the votes they lose if the values voters walk.(I also think, and again it’s just my opinion, that the moderate/liberal Republicans see the values voters as something of an embarrassment, like a nutty aunt living in the attic. The Foley, Vitter, Graig episodes didn’t help).
It’s also my belief that this strategy started a long time ago, and hit critical mass after Karl Rove leveraged the values voters. Both wins were squeakers, and with the red states getting more purple, the alliance isn’t looking to remain viable for much longer. I know someone will bring up the point that the alliance would have worked, had the GOP really held up their end of the bargain, but the leadership had to have known from day one that it would be impossible to deliver on most of the values voters expectations, so instead they built the alliance and bucked the tiger till it throwed and ate em, and now they’ll regroup...form a new alliance with moderate Republicans and Conservative Democrats and start over. I believe we are witnessing the first steps of this sea change.
Ok those are my observations. This wasn’t meant to get any one group POd, just something to consider.