Mr. Giuliani’s Republican competitors aren’t anywhere near as imposing — to the point that the former Mayor’s ideological heresy might actually be outweighed by their flaws and shortcomings. Mr. McCain’s White House ship is rapidly taking on water. Influential segments of the party’s interest-group establishment still haven’t forgiven his crusade to put them out of business with campaign-finance restrictions, just as the media that once adoringly celebrated his maverick streak has now fully turned on him for his unbending support of the war and his tendency to say whatever conservative interest groups want to hear. (...)

Then there’s Mitt Romney, the former one-term governor of Massachusetts,
who has alternately described himself to conservatives as an avowed foe of abortion, a champion of “traditional marriage” and a “lifelong hunter”—the perfect recipe, it would seem, to eat into Mr. Giuliani’s soft support from the right. Except that Mr. Romney spent his entire political career (until three years ago) defining himself in flatly opposite terms. The chameleon act has worked on some Republicans, but Mr. Romney’s peerless opportunism creates profound vulnerabilities across the ideological spectrum.

Given these alternatives, it’s not at all clear that conservatives who are drawn to Mr. Giuliani’s 9/11 credentials will abandon him, especially since he’s done all he can (short of resorting to Mr. Romney’s blatant flip-flopping) to convince them that he won’t actually promote gay rights, abortion rights and gun control as President.

"Giuliani Beats Up on the Little Guys": il titolo dell'articolo scritto da Steve Kornacki per The New York Observer è tutto un programma. Da leggere.