I was thinking more of votes in Congress.
This brings up another scenario I was considering. Rudy is nominated. A portion of Social conservatives refuse to vote for him in the general election. He gets elected anyway somehow with these crossover voters. He now has even less of an obligation toward soc cons than he would otherwise. The Republican Party shifts more leftward.
A Republican Congress would be more able to oppose Hillary's actions than Rudy's.
He now has even less of an obligation toward soc cons than he would otherwise. The Republican Party shifts more leftward.
The Republican Party's leftward movement results from a belief that moving leftward won't cost votes. If half the population would vote for Stalin himself so long as he had an (R) next to his name, why shouldn't the GOP run Old Joe?
By contrast, if the GOP sees that they can run someone as far left as GWB while getting 35 percentage points from the GOP base, but moving left to Giuliani would drop that figure to 15 percentage points, then they would realize that there's a limit to how far left they could go before they started losing net votes.