Wow, Ed, even that title is bass-ackwards, reflecting the Politico piece from which it was derived.  Which brings to mind the old expression, “Consider the source.”

Rather than take a base on balls, I think I’ll take a few cuts at this.

***Here’s the operative portion of the quote:

Rudy Giuliani, whose positions on abortion and homosexuality mark him as the most socially liberal Republican presidential candidate in more than a generation, is so far winning the contest for the support of social conservatives….

As I mused yesterday, I think name recognition and lib media cheerleading are driving these early polls more than anything else.  Non-political junkies know who Giuliani and McCain are, and the rest of the field is an amorphous blob.  As the field narrows down, and candidates like Mitt Romney and (if he tosses in his Derby) Fred Thompson get more face time, Rudy will be reeled back into the pack.

***Abortion = Judges.  The former issue may not rank very high, but the latter does.  The more GOP voters pay attention to Rudy’s defense of Roe v. Wade, the more doubt they’ll have about what kind of judges he’d appoint.

***Wasn’t McCain trying to play to the “Goldwater conservatives” when he blasted evangelical voters in the 2000 primaries?  Where’d that get him?

***If voters are going to want “a signficant change” in 2008, they’ll elect Hillary Clinton.  The vaunted Nixon strategy is a chimera and has been ever since, well, 1972.  And Hillary isn’t George McGovern, even if she is a McGovernik.

***What about George W. Bush has “worn everyone down”?  It can’t be anything on domestic policy, where he has pretty much occupied the overall center since the day he took office.

Answer: the war.  That was a big factor in turning “independents” against the GOP in last November’s mid-term elections.  Consequently, the most likely “significant change” the voters will want next year is a president who will “end the war” (and not just in Iraq).  That will pretty much sweep away the entire GOP field outside of Ron Paul, who looks to be angling to be Hillary’s Secretary of State. 

Nominating Giuliani won’t alter that one jot or tittle.

***Romney and Thompson can make the case for the war at least as credibly as Giuliani can, without his social liberal baggage.  If the field were mostly Ron Paul types, I could see where Giuliani would be almost the default choice.  But that’s not the case.

Besides, there’s more than one direction of change.  What if the GOP was to nominate a candidate who was strong on the war as well as promising a return to small government conservatism?

Sounds like Fred Thompson to me.  Let’s narrow down the field and get him into the race and then see where the Rudy tsunami goes.

UPDATE: Double-H recommends the border-security specifics (or lack thereof) of McCain-Kennedy II as a conveniently proximate litmus test of national security seriousness for “the Big Three”.