Right Side of the Rainbow

Rudy’s closing faster than any of us expected:

The stock market reached record highs last week, but nothing on the Dow Jones Industrials outstripped soaring shares of Giuliani Preferred. The nation’s political market is bullish on Rudy.

A spate of polls showed the former New York mayor the preferred Republican choice nationally and in states as diverse as New Hampshire, Alabama and Oklahoma. The chatterazzi says someone with Rudy Giuliani’s moderate social views can’t win a Republican nomination in a contest that will include a wide swath of conservative party members. They are wrong.

And this, from George F. Will:

Regarding the Republican race, for many months commentators have said that when the Republican base learns the facts about Rudy Giuliani’s personal life (an annulled first marriage, a messy divorce, then a third marriage) and views on social issues (for abortion rights, gay rights and gun control, in each case with limits), support for him will evaporate. But such commentary is becoming self-refuting. The insistent reiteration of it during Giuliani’s coast-to-coast campaigning is telling activist Republicans — the sort of people who read political commentary — the facts about Giuliani. And so far those facts are not causing a recoil from him: According to the USA Today/Gallup Poll, his lead over John McCain has risen from 31-27 in November to 40-24 today.

This does not mean that the social issues have lost their saliency. People for whom opposition to abortion is very important might, however, think that in wartime it is not supremely important. Or they might reason, correctly, that presidents can change abortion policy only by changing the Supreme Court, so Giuliani’s pledge to nominate justices like Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and John Roberts is sufficient.

Furthermore, California’s primary is being moved up to Feb. 5, and New Jersey’s and some other states’ might be moved to that date, so Giuliani’s views on social issues might become, on balance, advantages. And suppose Giuliani convinces Republicans that he can become the first Republican since George H.W. Bush in 1988 to be competitive for California’s (now 55) electoral votes.

Markets are mechanisms that generate information. The political market is working: Americans are learning much about the candidates, and themselves.

Finally, a CBS News poll of Republican primary voters puts Giuliani over McCain 50-29. What’s going on here? Patrick Ruffini explains:

I see several vectors converging on a single point: the low-key coverage of Giuliani over the past year, combined with the whisper campaign that he wouldn’t run, had artificially depressed his earlier numbers. The polls are now catching up with the reality that the Mayor is a fully-fledged candidate.