The Giuliani Advantage

If you click on the link in this entry's title, you will see that Rudy Giuliani is leading John McCain in every poll listed at www.pollingreport.com. Given his messy personal life and his willingness in the past to be tolerant of different lifestyles, a lot of commentators are surprised by his strength in the early polls. Backing Giuliani, however, is a smart move by Republicans, even conservatives.

Every campaign has to have a story line, a theme that voters can relate to and understand. McCain's problem is that the Democrats will hang the Iraq War around his neck and use that to beat him in the general election. With McCain as the candidate, any Democratic candidate will be able to use the theme that Republicans stand for reckless foreign adventures that are not in America's best interests. That theme works no matter who is the Democratic nominee.

If Giuliani is the nominee, however, that theme is much harder to establish because while Rudy says that he supports Bush on the Iraqi War, he is not nearly as identified with that war as McCain. Further, the added advantage is that he is associated in the public's mind with the heroism of September 11, 2001. Thus, backing Rudy works two ways. One is that he is not as closely identified with Iraq as McCain and the second is that he invokes positive images of 9-11.

This is not to say that Giuliani is going to be the nominee. His personal life and his flip-flops on social issues just may be too much for conservatives to handle. It is say, however, that the Republicans are looking for a candidate who will not be burdened by Bush's War.