Pondering Giuliani's Popularity

Even with the actual election more than two years away, the Republican hopefuls for 2008 have come under public scrutiny. Recently, Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, has taken many hits about his past.

Giuliani has been married three times and has been accused of serial adultery. Also, his college-age son Andrew just publicly announced that he would not campaign for his father. Richard Land, head of public policy for the Southern Baptist Convention, said, as reported by YahooNews: "I mean, this is divorce on steroids. To publicly humiliate your wife in that way, and your children. That's rough. I think that's going to be an awfully hard sell, even if he weren't pro-choice and pro-gun control."

According to the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll, on March 11, 34 percent of the people favored Giuliani over McCain (18 percent) and Romney and Gingrich (9 percent each). A lot of voters don’t seem to share Land’s point of view. Giuliani’s popularity puzzles, considering that a recent Newsweek poll revealed 58% of all Republican-leaning voters as social conservatives; however, 74% of them said that Giuliani's marriage record didn't matter to them.

On Politico.com, Roger Simon argues that the country cares more about getting a president who knows what’s really important for the country as opposed to preaching ideology. In Giuliani’s own words: "The point of a presidential election is to figure out who you believe the most and what you think are the most important things for this country at a particular time."

Conservative columnist George Will argues that the set-up of the 2008 primaries will favor a socially liberal candidate, and voters might realize that. California’s primary is being moved up to February 5^th. These are states where Giuliani’s liberal stance on social issues might mean an advantage to convince independent, centrist, swing and non-ideological voters – Giuliani might be able to challenge the state’s crucial 34 electoral votes.

We might find the political turf looking very differently in 2008 as the Republicans ponder the question Simon asks: “Which would you rather have: purity or the presidency?”