Its the social conservatives (well, SOME who describe themselves as such) who are threatening to bolt the party if their candidate(s) is nominated. Why have a party if you're just gonna go home if you can't get your way?
NO ONE on the "open-to-Rudy' side has said anything about staying home if, say Duncan Hunter won the nomination (I wish he could - but he can't).
Its the folks on your side, no doubt feeling the shifting winds and notliking it, who are throwing a collective temper tantrum.
Spot on.
After all, how could reasonably intelligent people take an election in the midst of a highly unpopular war led by an extraordinarily unpopular president with a GOP controlled congress beset by a variety of scandals and the predominant media acting as the PR wing of the DNC and conclude that it was social issues that hurt the GOP?
I have a theory Al. Those who expound this line of thought do so not because they believe it, but because it furthers their ultimate goal, to expunge those unsophisticated rubes otherwise known as social and Christian conservatives from the Grand Ol' Party. The Christie Whitman "It's My Party Too" wing has been looking for an opportunity to seize back control of the party from the great unwashed for some time now and have concluded that the time is ripe. Think how much nicer it will be for them at all the cocktail parties when they don't have to spend all their time distancing themselves from those awful pro-lifers, I mean for God's sake Al, those people actually stand in front of clinics and pray! Or those NRA people, they own guns! Not just fox hunting guns, but handguns!
Now, maybe I'm cynical, but pushing a pro-abortion, anti-gun, pro-homosexual former mayor of NYC seems like a very good way to marginalize all those "fringy" social conservatives and return the party to the glory days of Rocky and Jerry Ford.
If they (notice I didn't say you, because I'm being nice) succeed you can expect the same results at the voting booth.