First off, social conservatives aren’t unified on Rudy. One of the most interesting things about the Ruffini poll is the comments section, where you see a variety of opinions from social conservatives on Giuliani.

Second, as Clint pointed out, this is an electoral college race. Even if his margins of victory are lower in places like Texas or South Carolina or Kansas, I’m still reasonably sure Giuliani would carry those states.

Third, and this ties into the second point, for all the social conservatives who might stay at home, Giuliani has the chance to pick up votes from those middle-of-the-road voters who want strong defense and low taxes but are uncomfortable with Republicans on social issues like gay marriage and abortion. We’re talking about the Jeff Jarvis Democrats here. They are ripe for the picking, especially if the Kossacks succeed in driving the Democrats ever leftward. I live in New Jersey, and I would bet that if Giuliani is the nominee in 2008, this state has a good chance of going red.

The things that unnerve me about Giuliani are his temper and his ego. I think his screwy personal life is largely a function of that. He can be very touchy, which isn’t a good thing to be if you’re in a position where every day, somebody is burning you in effigy. So I’m not sold on him yet. But he’s the most compelling candidate I’ve seen so far.

Not the biggest reason to not vote for him (abortion and gun control are). But a good one.

Can it really be that so many of you don’t
realize how radically unacceptable Rudy Giulani’s views on social issues are to the Party’s very base- and the consequences once those views become more widely known? He’ll never survive the early primaries and caucuses. And if, by some miracle, he were to win the nomination,it would be worthless. Too many members of that base (myself included, btw) would prefer to lose an election than our Party, and would not vote for him if he were nominated.

I wouldn’t vote for Hillary (or any of the other potential Democrat candidates), mind you. But I wouldn’t vote for Rudy either. I would leave the Presidential line blank- and a big enough chunk of the Party’s base would do the same to destroy any chance of Giuliani winning the election even if he got the nomination.

I simply see no basis on which to prefer him to the alternative.

To win the presidency, a candidate needs to take swing states (like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania) and if possible put states from the other side into play. (like Guliani probably does for New York)

It makes not the slightest bit of difference what anyone in California or Texas thinks — we already know that the Democratic candidate will get all of California’s electoral votes and the Republican candidate will get all of Texas’s electoral votes.

Isn’t anyone doing polls exclusively in swing states? (You’d better believe that the candidates are, but I mean someone who’s making them public…)

I can’t figure out why DJ seems to think this poll is not only unscientific (a fair enough complaint), but also somehow so bad for the GOP, the blogosphere and the Western world in general that it needs such denouncing. If his concern is that Rudy is too liberal, isn’t it better for him to rise to the top of the polls now, so people can start paying him more attention three years before election day, rather than having a sudden boomlet of attention like that that enveloped Howard Dean and nearly led to him running away with the nomination?

Republicans do tend to close ranks around one guy early, so I suppose some folks such as DJ who don’t like Rudy have reason to worry Hizzoner may start getting that mantle of inevitability soon. And I respect those who say they’d have a hard time voting for Rudy because they view him as liberal on social issues. But whenever I see someone essentially arguing they’ll hold their breath unless the GOP nominates Rick Santorum or someone like that, I’m left wondering if they remember that President Bush, who is only a moderate social conservative, still just barely won.

Do I really have to get prepared for the fact that he might be our nominee?!?