(...) Heading into the post-Labor Day sprint to the primaries, Rudy Giuliani has utterly defied the pundits who predicted that Republican voters would never accept a twice divorced, pro-choice New Yorker.

Rather than wilt, Mr. Giuliani has cemented his lead in national polls and in South Carolina—one of the most conservative states in the country. The latest Diageo/Hotline poll shows that he not only leads his closest competitor Fred Thompson by 10 points, but also leads among Evangelicals by the same margin and is up by six points among voters who believe abortion should be banned entirely.

Why did the pundits and many conservative critics get it so wrong, and why is Mr. Giuliani scoring so well with died hard conservatives?

Perché Rudy piace ai conservatori (secondo il New York Observer).

In New York City, Rudy Giuliani governed a locality dominated by liberal Democrats; public-sector labor unions; social-welfare activists; and a powerful local news media actively hostile to a limited-government philosophy. In the face of such tremendous headwind, Giuliani’s economic accomplishments are remarkable.

Da leggere assolutamente, il paper elaborato dal think-tank liberista Club for Growth sulla politica economica di Rudolph Giuliani durante il suo mandato come sindaco di New York. Il presidente del Club for Growth, Pat Tooney, ne parla anche sulla National Review.

Questa città non è per tutti, proprio come il suo ex sindaco. Rudy Giuliani e New York sono l'uno l'estensione dell'altra e per questo rappresentano un binomio indissolubile. Giuliani è indomito, insofferente, imperioso ma vulnerabile proprio come questa città. Ha governato New York come un imperatore in preda ad una visione e in pochi anni l'ha trasformata. Certo l'ha pulita, l'ha resa sicura, percorribile, quasi ordinata, ma il punto è che l'ha resa godibile al resto del paese che ancora non la capisce ne l'ha mai amata troppo, Lo ha fatto americanizzandola un po', e strappandola all'immaginario degli europei che hanno sempre considerato New York una loro estensione.

L'ultimo post di Maria Luisa Rossi Hawkins su Stelle a Strisce (uno degli ultimi blog approdati a TocqueVille) è uno straordinario atto d'amore verso Rudy e verso New York. Da leggere assolutamente.

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.