Thursday, March 29, 2007

Guiliani has nowhere to go but down

That seems to be the theme of Matt Towery's latest article, and I'm not sure he's wrong. Particularly if Gingrich or Fred Thompson enter the race, everything he brings to the table would seem to be eclipsed by someone else. The only thing Guiliani has at the moment is that he's on the top of the pile. Which is, admittedly, a pretty big advantage.

I have to say I don't entirely buy Towery's argument. For one thing he argues that Romney is more electable than Guiliani. That just doesn't seem accurate. He also says that Gingrich will challenge him by having more innovative ideas. That's not entirely true either. Well it's true as far as it goes; I'm sure Gingrich does have some innovative bad ideas. But that's not the threat he represents. He is actually a threat because hes an actual conservative and Guiliani's conservative credentials are not as strong as they might be.

He also compares Guiliani to Dean which I don't see either. Obviously "the Dean Scream" has been overplayed, but the truth is that Dean was running a bit of a maverick campaign. He was a bit of a threat to the powers that be. Guiliani might seem threatening to the Republican base but he's not any kind of threat to the party. He'll be a party man on the campaign trail and in the White House. And he's a mainstream candidate, while Dean was seen as more of an extremist (he wasn't, as it turns out, just right about the war too early).

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