American Thinker: "Rudy Giuliani Could be Just the Ticket for Social Conservatives"

Yeah, the ticket for departure from the Republican Party:

... the most engaging political question at this stage in process of picking our next president has to do with Rudy Giuliani.

- Can America's mayor win support from enough social conservatives to win the Republican nomination?

Maybe not, but social conservatives should think long and hard before they decide to pass on Giuliani. This may be difficult advice to credit. Giuliani is thoroughly alienated from the dominant concerns of the social right.

The bundle of social issues that provoke so much vitriol in our politics arise out of the effort to reverse society's moral decay. Social conservatives see a country with declining respect for the value of human life, and they don't want government to hasten the decline by celebrating abortion and indiscriminately funding the destruction of human embryos for research. They see a country that no longer understands what sex is for and they don't want government promoting further confusion by equating homosexual alliances with traditional marriage.

Giuliani's career in electoral politics began in New York City where moral decay was both far enough advanced to be immune from direct attack and eclipsed by other more immediate concerns. Giuliani couldn't have done any good by preaching to New Yorkers about the value of human life and the teleology of sex. They needed someone to protect their lives from rampant crime and their livings from a local government that had been determined to beggar them all.

Mayor Giuliani delivered what they needed most. He reclaimed New York City from the toxic leftism of his predecessors but in the process identified himself with the moral elements of their leftism. He proclaimed himself "pro-choice" and even indicated he would vote against banning partial birth abortion. He has been open to "civil unions" and doesn't seem to understand the downside of giving a government stamp of approval to homosexual relationships.

All of this is disturbing, but social conservatives are concerned about social rot and Giuliani is one of the very few executives in the history of the world with a record of reversing rot. This is appealing. On September 11, 2001 and the days that followed he auditioned for commander in chief and the audition went well. This too is appealing. If we don't bestir ourselves to win our war with Islamic fascism, the moral state of our civilization won't matter. We won't be around to wallow in sin.

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My Comments:
And, of course, Rudy is the ONLY one who can save our civilization from the Islamic hordes. Such pro-Rudy alarmism is every bit as off-putting as Al Gore's schtick.

The real question is whether a "civilization" that thinks so little of the natural family unit and of the basic right to life is actually worth preserving.


UPDATE
This was just too good to leave in comments:

A more important and much more interesting question is whether or not Rudy Giuliani can gain enough libertarian support.

The Libertarian Party is currently without a frontrunning candidate for 2008. If they continue to slump, perhaps the door will be wide open for Rudy to gain some major LP support.

This would make up 10 times over for any support he might lose amongst Social Conservatives.

(emphasis added)

Uhhhhhh, are we talking about the same Libertarian Party that has:

(1) only 200,000 registered voters, and
(2) never drawn more than 1% of the popular vote in any presidential election?

Meanwhile, social conservative voters number in the millions, and perhaps tens of millions. You better put down whatever you're smokin'.