Rudy Has Earned Pass From Right

Kevin Rennie - Hartford Courant

The stock market reached record highs last week, but nothing on the Dow Jones Industrials outstripped soaring shares of Giuliani Preferred. The nation's political market is bullish on Rudy.

A spate of polls showed the former New York mayor the preferred Republican choice nationally and in states as diverse as New Hampshire, Alabama and Oklahoma. The chatterazzi says someone with Rudy Giuliani's moderate social views can't win a Republican nomination in a contest that will include a wide swath of conservative party members. They are wrong.

Giuliani is the rare successful politician who avoids living in a state of constant calibration. He explains his views, he doesn't run from them. This may knock the other candidates onto the back foot. An interview on CNN's "Larry King Live" on Wednesday found Giuliani relaxed and admitting to making personal and policy mistakes. The going will get rougher when reporters and opponents start pawing through his two divorces and three marriages. He ought to avoid reprinting the sultry photo he and his wife posed for in Harper's. Next time, get a room.

Neither King nor Fox's Sean Hannity, to whom Giuliani gave a long interview the week before, are notable stops along the pitiless road to the presidency, but they provided a look at his campaign persona. The King appearance was a big improvement over the themeless pudding of a speech he delivered to New Hampshire Republicans three weeks ago.

He's pro-choice, supports civil unions and wanted to restrict gun ownership when he was mayor. Any of those would have been anathema to Republican primary voters in the past 30 years. They still matter in time of war, but not as much as they once did.

And Giuliani provides explanations that avoid the condescending tone other moderate Republicans adopt as they strain to hide contempt for the right-wing party troops.

Giuliani earned a bye from those troops even before his memorable leadership on and after Sept. 11. To them, Giuliani fought the beast in its lair, starting with those menacing squeegee men who held drivers hostage at city intersections.

The other candidates talk about social issues and seek to placate suspicious conservatives who've heard their sweet songs before. Giuliani showcases pelts on his belt. The most sumptuous comes from his 1999 battle with the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The museum, which enjoyed some public funding, booked an incendiary exhibit that featured a portrait of the Virgin Mary caparisoned in elephant dung and vulgar photos. Giuliani cut off the museum's public funds. That's something religious Republicans in South Carolina can understand. And who can forget Giuliani's rejection of a $10 million donation to a 9/11 fund from an Israeli-hating Saudi?

Giuliani may be lucky in his Republican opponents. Sen. John McCain looks and sounds weary after eight years of campaigning for the job. He's handed his immediate fate over to Gen. David Patraeus to show some progress in Baghdad.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney hoisted himself into the top tier of Republicans last year with his smooth style and fundraising prowess. His recent stand as a foe of abortion came into sharp relief when mischief-makers resurrected a 1994 debate with Sen. Ted Kennedy in which Romney sounded like the very model of a modern Massachusetts Republican. Romney sounded the same in his answers to 2002 questionnaires on a woman's right to choose. Romney's revelation on the value of life is meeting with some skepticism among conservatives. They've witnesses this sort of conversion before.

Giuliani's great advantage may be that he looks like a winner. He's broken into a big lead among Republicans who have a preference. And he beats Hillary Clinton in the general. Giuliani may be the only way back from the wilderness.

That Republican insiders are keen to keep the disaster of 2006 from a catastrophe in 2008 came clear in the endorsement of Giuliani by the party's oily opportunist Rep. David Dreier. The man who broke Nancy Reagan's heart by not pursuing her daughter Patti Davis is a reliable indicator of who's been tagged a winner. Last week it started to look like the political market was going long on Rudy.

Kevin Rennie is a lawyer and a former Republican state lawmaker. His column runs Sundays on the Other Opinion page. He can be reached at kfrennie @yahoo.com.