Conservatives won't like this Rudy

From The Smoking Gun:

Rudy Giuliani's Vulnerabilities

FEBRUARY 12--As he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph Giuliani will have to contend with political and personal baggage unknown to prospective supporters whose knowledge of the former New York mayor is limited to his post-September 11 exploits. So, in a bid to educate the electorate, we're offering excerpts from a remarkable "vulnerability study" that was commissioned by Giuliani's campaign prior to his successful 1993 City Hall run. The confidential 450-page report, authored by Giuliani's research director and another aide, was the campaign's attempt to identify possible lines of attack against Giuliani and prepare the candidate and his staff to counter "the kinds of no-holes-barred assault" expected in a general election rematch with Democratic incumbent David Dinkins.

Among vulnerabilities the interal report raised are:

- The Candidate's independence from traditional national Republican
policies
- The Giuliani report noted that the candidate needed to make it clear to voters that he was "pretty good on most issues of concern to gay and lesbian New Yorkers"
- Pro-choice and supported public funding for abortion
- Giuliani's 14-year marriage to his second cousin, a union that he got annulled by claiming to have never received proper dispensation from the Catholic Church for the unorthodox nuptials
- Prospective charges that Giuliani dodged the Vietnam draft
- Was a "man without convictions" because of his
transformation from George McGovern voter to a Reagan-era Justice Department appointee

The campaign study was obtained by The Village Voice's Wayne Barrett in the course of preparing "Rudy!," an investigative biography of Giuliani. Perhaps that is why Giuliani, as Barrett reported, ordered copies of the vulnerability study destroyed shortly after it was circulated to top campaign aides.

These questions may not have a great affect on Giuliani with moderate voters, but they will certainly cause social conservatives to question their support for Rudy Giuliani. Then again, another leading contender for the nomination, Mitt Romney, is also the subject of criticism for his inconsistent view on gay marriage and abortion.