Heart in the right place does matter. If Dean were nominated in 2004, we would have a President Dean, and we wouldn't be in Iraq.

The reason for the leftie support of Dean in 2004 wasn't so much having to do with heart, it had to do with perspective. Dean, other than his Iraqi war stance, had a lot of proposals that were from a bottom up perspective, instead of top down. And this agreed with what lefties want, and made us feel, that even if he didn't agree with us on the particulars, he respected our point of view because he shared it.

Giuliani's "whole persona is based on a contempt for modern liberal culture"? Seems to me that Giuliani has lived modern liberal culture, or at least a right-winger's caricature of it.

No. The reason they don't care is that he flopped (or flipped) to their point of view. This, to them, shows that their view is important enough to be pandered to, which means in turn that they're important. I actually don't think it would've helped if they'd been longtime foes of choice (see, McCain, John). They wouldn't have had as much opportunity for the come-to-Jesus moments, and they wouldn't have all this press about how they're seeing the light on abortion. It's a constant reminder that they are now agin it.

People need reminders.

Karmakin, Yes Dean also had his "50-state strategy" for 2006 and it worked.

Seems to me that Giuliani has lived modern liberal culture, or at least a right-winger's caricature of it.

There is a distinction between a candidate's public persona and her private person. In Giuliani's case, the distinction is quite a sharp one.

Please use quotes around "strict constructionists". The entire notion is a fraud and should not be perpetuated.

The things MY doesn't understand would fill the grand canyon.

The nomination is Giuliani's to lose. The default position in a contested election is for the GOP to nominate the hater -- that's Nixon's legacy to his party.

And don't kid yourself, that genial old Nobodaddy Reagan was a world-class hater. Resentment drove the whole arc of his life from about 1945 on.

Romney won't cut it. Not a hater.

Yglesias is just showing his age here.

Giuliani has benefitted from modern liberal culture by being able to shed wives like a lizard sheds its skin. He get to say what he pleases, another benefit of modern liberal culture. If the converse type of culture were to hold sway (religious, conservative, hateful right-wing noses into your business), he'd be stuck with wife number 1 and unable to speak his mind on anything unless the Gawd-Squad okayed it.

He benefits, but he bitches about it. Typical republican asshole.

For Rudy, as for most Republicans, politics is all about serving his own interests.

Sometimes those interests have to do with getting and keeping the most amount of money he can. Sometimes those interests have to do with being able to live a completely reckless lifestyle without constraint.

He's as happy to grab from the liberal culture as he is from anything else if it suits his particular desires. He will always turn liberal for Rudy.

For a man who dresses in drag, marries his cousin and divorces twices, he certainly doesn't mind living in liberal culture.

Making abortion illegal would open the floodgates of illegal abortion pill trade. There is already an underground trade in morning after pills. Kids think nothing of sharing their meds with other kids. Illegal abortion drugs would leave abortions totally unregulated, no parental consent, etc. Anti-abortion zealots need to be careful what they wish.

Seems to me that Giuliani has lived modern liberal culture, or at least a right-winger's caricature of it.

He's a rich, powerful man, so he can do whatever he wants, just as rich, powerful men always have. The fundies will accept that, as long as he does his part to make sure that commoners are held to a stricter standard.

As Mitt said: "What about 9-11?"

It isn't the details of Republicans' positions on abortion that is most important here, but rather the way they are presenting themselves to likely GOP primary voters.

Based on his record in Congress going back 20 years, John McCain is plainly a more reliable pro-lifer than either Romney or Giuliani (so, of course, is Sam Brownback). But McCain has not for many years presented himself as a pro-life Republican who will stand up to all the people in Washington who are not pro-life. He hasn't tapped into the deep vein of alienation among the most dedicated Republican voters from people they see as being on the other side (not only of this issue, but of several others).

Both Giuliani and Romney are doing this effectively at the moment. The hostility they show toward liberals and Democrats matters more than the substance of their thoughts about abortion. They don't do this nearly as well as President Bush has over the years -- unlike Bush, they cannot appeal to evangelical conservatives as one of them -- and their position in Republican primary politics would be stronger if they were genuinely pro-life. Conviction is secondary here, not completely irrelevant.

The bar Republican candidates must clear with the Republican voters likely to show up on primary day is easily and precisely defined: they must appear as a strong leader who will stand up to liberals and the media. If they clear that bar they will have substantial flexibility on the specifics of most issues; if they don't, it won't help them that much to have a consistent, conservative record.

Making abortion illegal would open the floodgates of illegal abortion pill trade.... Illegal abortion drugs would leave abortions totally unregulated, no parental consent, etc. Anti-abortion zealots need to be careful what they wish.

The dirty little secret about the anti-abortion movement is that they are much more interested in making abortions illegal than they are at preventing abortions.

Kevin: evangelical culture isn't as monolithic as all that. It's not so un-monolithic that Dems should waste a lot of time and money on changing evangelicals' minds on voting Democratic, but still.

A solid majority of evangelicals will vote against liberals if the opportunity presents itself. But a lot of them - especially evangelical women - are genuinely serious about abortion, and aren't going to vote for a pro-choicer, no matter what they agree with him/her on otherwise.

I say Rudy's going to lose 20% of the evangelical vote in the general election right there. They won't vote Dem either, so they won't vote, or will vote for some minor-party candidate.

A smaller number of evangelicals - I'd guess more like 10% or so - won't vote for Romney, no way, nohow, because he's a Mormon.

In the primaries, the problem is neither one of these guys is exactly ideal. Sure, Romney's pro-life now, but he began a Presidential campaign a little over a year after coming to Jesus on that central issue. Even if the conversion was genuine, it smacks of wanting to lead the flock the week after you joined it.

It also raises the question of what issues will he have a mid-life conversion on, after he becomes President?

And of course Rudy's pro-choice views will cause him to lose a lot more than 20% of evangelicals in the primaries. No telling who he'll lose them to, but he'll lose them.

This is why Fred Thompson's getting as much attention as he's gotten. If conservatives were pleased with their choices, Fred would be nowhere. Now that Fred's getting some scrutiny and the reviews are mixed, who knows who the next Great White Hope will be? Won't be Newt, even if he runs.

I keep thinking that one of these days, either Brownback or Huckabee will start gaining some traction. A lot of values voters want a 'true' conservative, someone who's one of them. Rudy's only one of them if the key identifier is anger at liberals. But it's really not, for a lot of evangelicals.

The reason the flip-flopping matters is that values voters fear that electing Presidents who are ambivalent about abortion (Bush I, Reagan), will lead to more Stevenses, Souters, Kennedys and O'Connors. Only a true believer will adequately enforce the litmus tests.

The bar Republican candidates must clear with the Republican voters likely to show up on primary day is easily and precisely defined: they must appear as a strong leader who will stand up to liberals and the media.

If only Republicans were more concerned about actually standing up to America's actual enemies, they wouldn't have blown their decades-long branding effort on "strong on defense" in Bush's disastrously incompetent occupation of Iraq.

By the way, I'm grateful to Zathras' drive-by post for so accurately depicting the degeneracy of the modern Republican Party.

Even if they convince themselves that Romney will govern as a hardline pro-lifer (something that's a bit of a stretch in the first place since he's so obviously willing to compromise his principles when he's under political pressure), his position pretty clearly shows that he's not really one of them. Not really.

I'm not so sure about this. Not a single vote has been cast, so it remains to be seen whether or not Romney fares poorly among conservative values primary voters, or whether Giuliani fares well. Last time I looked, Romney was doing rather well in Iowa polls; Iowa GOP caucus voters surely include a hefty helping of evangelical, pro-life voters.

First I hink that its necessary to point out that that divorce is associated more strongly with the GOP and conservatives than it is with liberals.

Secondly its worth recalling that an important component of the GOP strategy is the "Solid South." Giuliani's history is important here and will probably be used in an under the radar effort. The big question is how Giuliani's bona fides on race will be transmitted to low information voters to motivate their turn-out. It would be worth registering as a Republican in an important southern state just to get the direct mail in the primary season.

The Republicans can pick whomever they like, it won't matter. GwB has ruined the party for the next several elections. A name change might help since it would satisfy a desire for a third party, a real one.

The broader issue here is that the capitulation reveals a lack of substance and character and the willingness, therefore, to put politics first. We have had enough of that over the last six years and it doesn't bode well for the future of this country if the next president is more of the same.

Religious zealots should keep their noses out of politics. We had a long tradition of this until the Irish Catholics of the National Review maintained the conservative movement after Goldwater, with the addition of Popery, and the Republicans started courting the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells.

Three cheers for King Billy!

Romney may be the most craven, lickspittle politician in American history. It is obvious that he will say or do anything to get the Republican nomination and I'm quite certain he would get down and lick up dog crap off the floor if he thought it would get him elected president. The man has no convictions, no beliefs and no integrity as near as I can tell. To him, winning is the only thing and the hell with anyone or anything that gets in his way.

In short, the perfect capitalist. The Ayn Rand worshippers must love this stiff....

Kevin, I think you've hit on something really important here. If you put aside the pro-lifers' general wrongness on their core issues (not to mention their overall lack of compassion and self-awareness), Dems need to recognize their sincerity. That means exploiting it when their candidates are craven opportunists.

The Repub grass-rooters are real fuehrer-seekers, but they have to truly believe in order to get that glassy-eyed stare they all crave. In short, keep on mocking. And somehow connect with the fence-sitters that a sincere, thoughtful pro-choicer makes a more reliable leader than a fairweather pro-lifer does.

Disputo: The dirty little secret about the anti-abortion movement is that they are much more interested in making abortions illegal than they are at preventing abortions.

Anti-abortion folks come in several flavors.

There are those who genuinely think abortion=murder and are actually naive enough to believe that it won't happen anymore if they outlaw it.

There are those who know abortions will continue to take place, legal or no, but still think it's murder and feel it's important to ban it for the principle of the thing.

There are those who are far less interested in saving embryos than in defacilitating those modern lifestyle developments (non-marital sex, female careerism, yuppie childlessness) that they don't approve of.

There are those who see banning abortion as a way of symbolically reinforcing (or restoring) Christendom's fading cultural hegemony.

And there are those who don't genuinely give a shit about any of that stuff, but see the political advantage of *pretending* to care about at least some of it. This last group, naturally, encompasses a majority of GOP pols and pundits.

"... who would you vote for if you had the choice? Someone who's technically on your side but whose heart isn't in it, or someone who's technically on the other side but whose heart is plainly in the right place?"

Well, both these choices leave out Romney and Giuliani as it's pretty clear that neither of them HAS a heart in the first place.

Romney is obviously an android, and Guiliani, although human, apparently lost his heart some time before he was elected Mayor of NYC.

Speaking of "Heart and Soul", I guess a new "Billy Jack" movie is due out this year. No way can it have the same actors could it? They would have to look like the Star Trek crew after the advanced aging took over just before the antidote was given..?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Jack

"Billy Jack was the first movie to be marketed with the "BlockBuster" technique: To release a movie at a great many theaters on the same day in the same market. Before Billy Jack, movies would test the market at a few theaters and blossom to more if the reaction proved positive. BlockBusters would get a much stronger reaction and result in a more popular acceptance. This marketing got Billy Jack its top grossing credit. Today, virtually all major releases open in thousands of theaters at the same time.

Laughlin's website mentions plans to make another sequel, entitled Billy Jack's Moral Revolution which, according to the film's synopsis, hopes to "lead a nationwide protest march to force Bush and Cheney to give up Iraq as an oil colony and stop the endless flow of blood by getting the hated Americans out of Iraq immediately. In Billy Jack’s Moral Revolution, Billy Jack and Jean are recruited by mainstream Americans, Moderate Republicans, Democrats and Independents who hate both Parties and believe Congress has become so systemically corrupt it can’t possibly represent the people any more, to form a new mainstream – not fringe – 3rd Party, with exciting reforms to give real power back to the people (see 3rd Party enclosure). Throughout the film Billy Jack and Jean are under a horrendous siege in their struggle to try to save the heart and soul of America–and Its Constitution--before it’s too late. The movie is set to be released sometime in 2007."

What's the specific concern about Romney's evident lack of genuine principles on these issues?

The fact that while the pro-life crowd is key to getting the Republican nomination (and thus, his position is convenient while he seeks that nomination), it is not nearly a majority position nationally, so it could be inconvenient in the general election and in governing. So the pro-life movement has good cause to fear that an opportunistic flip-flopper who has taken a pro-life position for convenience when hoping to be the Republican nominee for President might abandon that position once nominated or in office, or at least not expend much substantive effort toward advancing their interests beyond lip service.

Like any other interest group, they want someone willing to take risks for their cause, not someone whose attachment to it is a momentary convenience.