Monday, August 06, 2007

Rudy   [Rich Lowry]

I missed the debate, but I've been meaning to comment on something for a while. McCain's fall is a big deal for Rudy because it seems to have convinced his campaign he has an opening to compete seriously in Iowa and New Hampshire. So far this year the race has been a competition between Romney's traditional model (become pro-life, bank everything on the early states) and Rudy's non-traditional model (don't become pro-life, bank it all on Feb. 5). Outside of any considerations of their strengths or weaknesses as candidates, I thought Romney's model was the much stronger one on the theory that that's the way things have always worked and they will probably work that way again. But Rudy now seems to be paying more attention to the early states, and why not? If he finishes strong in the three early states (the definition of strong will obviously depend on expectations at the time) or wins one of them, it will be a huge momentum-builder for Florida and then Feb. 5. That still leaves his non-traditional strategy on abortion and the social issues. But one of the things that has impressed me most about Rudy's campaign is how shrewdly and seamlessly he has slid to the right on key issues (immigration most importantly). There is still room for him to move right on abortion without becoming pro-life and if his campaign is as shrewd on abortion as it has been on other issues, he'll do it. If he can start to talk about his conservatism having three legs to its stool like Romney does, he will have at least minimized a huge strategic vulnerability.

08/06 05:40 PMShare