Giuliani Will Meet The Right

By RYAN SAGER
March 1, 2007

When Mayor Giuliani takes the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., at noon tomorrow, it will mark the end of a long, strange, fitful anti-courtship between the man increasingly known as "Rudy" and a venerable right-wing institution that just doesn't know what to make of a crime-fighting, welfare-reforming, abortion-supporting, drag-wearing foreign-policy hawk.

CPAC is the conservative movement's annual family reunion. Two years ago, Mr. Giuliani was the black sheep. Though he won the yearly CPAC presidential straw poll in 2005, measuring the mood primarily of younger convention-goers, he was decidedly persona non grata with the higher-ups. The former mayor, known for his leadership after the September 11, 2001, attacks, asked to speak — he even offered to waive his usual fee — but was flatly rebuffed. "I would assume he wanted to come here to boost his conservative credentials, but we didn't think that would be useful," David Keene, the head of the American Conservative Union, which runs CPAC, sniffed at the time to a Rudy-friendly columnist, Deroy Murdock.

That, of course, was in the heady days after President Bush's reelection, when conservatives thought the good times would never stop rolling. Cut to a year later: In 2006, as the GOP's fortunes began to sag, Mr. Keene extended Mr. Giuliani an invitation, but it was a grudging (and last-minute) one. "A lot of people wanted to hear him on the terror question, so we invited him," Mr. Keene told me at the time — taking care to add, "If you ask me if he's a viable candidate for anything: no." Mr. Giuliani chose to stay away, citing prior engagements. Mr. Keene said the mayor had a standing invitation for 2007. Cut to this month, with the Republican Party in free fall — Congress lost, Mr. Bush's approval ratings in the gutter, and the fortunes of more conventional conservatives such as Senator McCain of Arizona and the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, fading — and it could hardly be a more auspicious time for the now-indisputable front-runner for the Republican nomination to come face-to-face with the wary base. But wait. If the base is really so wary, how exactly is Mr. Giuliani so far ahead in the polls?

The fact is, the base is already fairly comfortable with Mr. Giuliani and is quite seriously considering his candidacy. It's primarily a few gatekeepers — such as Mr. Keene, Focus on the Family head James Dobson, and Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — who stand truly dead-set against him. And these gatekeepers are becoming increasingly irrelevant in a party that wants to find its way out of the political wilderness and, to some extent, blames the more extreme elements of the religious right for leading it into the woods in the first place.

The polling on this point is unambiguous. (It has been for well over a year now, but people are only now finally beginning to believe it.) Mr. Giuliani is far and away the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination. And that support comes not from moderate or liberal Republicans, but from conservatives — including the white evangelicals who have made up such an important part of Mr. Bush's base.

Is Mr. Giuliani going to run away with the nomination? The early signs certainly point in that direction. He's leading Mr. McCain in Iowa; he's in spitting distance of Mr. McCain in New Hampshire, where the Arizona senator made his mark with the help of political independents in 2000; he's polling strong down South (though trailing in South Carolina), and the prospect of a California-New York-Florida primary in early February 2008 is nothing but good news for America's mayor.

Meanwhile, Mr. Giuliani seems to have a certain charisma, a certain likability factor, that's going to make it hard for anyone else to catch up. And that's not a matter of opinion. It's a measurable phenomenon. A Gallup poll released at the beginning of last month had some truly astonishing numbers. Don't tell Al Sharpton, but Mr. Giuliani is considered "more likeable" than Mr. McCain by Republicans and Republican leaners by 74% to 21% (a spread of 53 points). These same folks say Mr. Giuliani would be "better in a crisis" by a margin of 40 points. They think he "would do more to unite the country" by 37 points.

The reception Mr. Giuliani gets at CPAC tomorrow will be telling. Two years ago, even a year ago, he could have gotten a hero's welcome — a thank you for his service on September 11 and little scrutiny otherwise, with the presidential contest so far away. Not so here in early 2007. By the time this crowd meets again, the primary could be all but decided. Tomorrow will be a time for sizing up, a time for kicking the tires, a time for some tough questions from a room filled with people who could hardly have imagined a former mayor of New York City being the frontrunner for the Republican nomination just a few years ago.

Because, after all, the conservative movement has to begin dealing with the fact that Mr. Giuliani is now not only the "viable candidate" Mr. Keene denied he was, but far more — he is the front-runner.

Mr. Sager is the online editor of The New York Sun. He can be reached at rsager@nysun.com.

Giuliani Will Meet The Right

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