See Rudy Run

...He has spent the summer talking about his "12 Commitments to the American People," a collection of policy pledges that he keeps on a small card in his coat pocket...

...He raised more money from individual contributors than any other Republican candidate in the second quarter...

...It could be that most Republican elites assume the prospect of a Giuliani nomination to be so unlikely that they act as if he were not in the race at all...

...Still, a Giuliani candidacy would alter the Republican party...

...But when I hear senators say to me, 'If we torture them, they'll torture us,' I think they just miss the point completely...

...If that happened, writes the Republican political operative Soren Dayton, "the GOP, out of necessity, would need to recruit a whole new set of volunteers," shattering "the grip that social conservative activists have on the grassroots of the party...

...Giuliani has received more than his share of negative publicity...

...For one, it would de-link the Republican presidential nominee from opposition to Roe v. Wade for the first time in decades...

...He's winning the money race...

...See Rudy Run Why Giuliani, despite everything, remains the Republican frontrunner By Matthew Continetti Sioux City, Iowa Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, is wandering around a junior high school computer lab, smiling like a child...

...I don't think they understand Islamic terrorism," Giuliani said...

...It may be that the audiences who go see Giuliani are self-selected—that is, those voters who would ask social-issues questions know how he differs from them, and so don't bother to go at all...

...The conservative grassroots will remain more or less intact...

...Last week the Romney campaign spent considerable effort attempting to convince the political press that the former Massachusetts governor, not Giuliani, was the "actual" presidential frontrunner...

...He has led McCain in 96 of 108 national polls, led Romney in 104 of 104, and led Thompson in 46 of 47...

...Last week's Washington Post/ABC News poll of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents had him running more than 20 points ahead of either McCain or Thompson...

...What made this most recent Iowa trip so unusual was that Giuliani held nine events over two days...

...The first is determination to stop Hillary Clinton from becoming president...

...Giuliani doesn't talk about a new GOP Indeed, he and his campaign go to great lengths to emphasize his similarities with the conservatives who make up the single largest Republican voting bloc...

...He dominated the headlines surrounding the close of the second fundraising quarter on June 30...

...The only candidate really to go after Giuliani in the Republican debates was former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, and he recently dropped out of the race...

...Giuliani says he first became interested in Islamic terrorism in the mid-1970s, as an attorney in the Ford Justice Department...

...You know what this is like...

...Even as his poll numbers dropped, Giuliani's financial position strengthened...

...The conventional wisdom holds that as grassroots conservatives wake up to Giuliani's differences with them on issues like abortion, they will ditch him in favor of someone else...

...And just as the war on terror brings forth new strategies of statecraft and warcraft, Giuliani thinks it will also bring forth a new type of Republican presidential candidate—him—and perhaps a new, or at least different, Republican party...

...It's the early evening of July 18, and this is Giuliani's fourth campaign stop of the day...

...Over the last few weeks the campaign has announced new hires in Illinois, New Hampshire, California, and South Carolina...

...It seems clear he understands the difference between representing 8 million New Yorkers and serving as head of state and head of government for 300 million Americans...

...Not much is happening...

...For the moment, however, it seems Giuliani has weathered the storm...

...It's come from a former Bush speechwriter turned Washington Post columnist, Michael Gerson, who argued in a recent column that Giuliani is a "Nixon Republican...

...The rap on Giuliani is that his candidacy is based entirely on his leadership during September 11, 2001, and the days that followed...

...And all of this is just the beginning...

...In a half hour or so he will take questions from audience members in the school's gymnasium...

...I don't think they have suspended all the prejudgments that you have because you've looked at the world in a certain way for so much of your life, then stepped back from it and said, 'Do these people fit into this way of thinking, this category that we have?' The answer is they don't...

...And some of the things that were good for your individual constituency maybe aren't good for your overall constituency...

...It's an appeal that many in the press and in elite Republican circles seem not to have recognized...

...His aides say the drop in poll numbers is a fall from an "unnatural high," the inevitable result of a competitive, four-way primary between Giuliani, former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and McCain...

...This would be a considerable transformation...

...The Republican presidential race has entered a fallow period...

...The mayor contrasts himself with Clinton and other Democrats at every opportunity...

...And that was all...

...There's also a chance that fears of a Clinton restoration and the overall importance of the war on jihadism will subsume party differences over abortion...

...Giuliani's organization has also improved...

...While he leaves considerable room for maneuver on Iraq policy, Giuliani sees the war in Iraq as part of a larger struggle against jihadism...

...We shouldn't torture because it's wrong...

...A recent Gallup poll found that 74 percent of Republicans surveyed said Giuliani would be an acceptable GOP presidential nominee...

...Staff-wise, organization-wise, it's beginning to meld...

...He speaks of it allusively or as part of a list of terrorist attacks against the United States and U.S...

...The mayor seems to have been successful—so far...

...he says...

...He has not aired a single television ad...

...There's a chance that they will sit out 2008 if the Republican candidate doesn't share their views on abortion...

...But what if that's not the case...

...One man wanted to know about Giuliani's "family, faith, and politics...

...Terrorists are not armed combatants...

...John McCain's estimated 10 percentage point decline nationally, and the hemorrhaging of cash and staff from his campaign, has overshadowed Giuliani's downward trend...

...And it would divorce the Republican presidential nominee from much of the conservative movement for the first time since 2000...

...The mayor gives more interviews than he has in the past, and his staff is more responsive to the press...

...And the mayor was not pleased...

...He was the only Republican to improve his fundraising from the first to the second quarter...

...He seems more interested in preventing future attacks than in reminiscing about past terrorist successes...

...It was a signal that the former senator may be willing to exploit the former mayor's tangled relationships with the New York City public employees unions...

...In the past he has limited public appearances to one or two a day...

...The glee with which Giuliani says this, the joy he clearly takes at being in a room that reminds him of places where he can be in charge, barking orders and leading others, helps explain his appeal as a presidential candidate...

...The surveys bolster the Giuliani campaign's contention that his decline has halted...

...But it was noticed inside the Giuliani campaign...

...The argument wasn't convincing...

...By any polling standard," Charles Franklin wrote in a July 24 email, Giuliani "is, as of today, the clear frontrunner...

...Through the summer the mayor will continue to drive his message, define himself, and set the agenda for this campaign," Giuliani director of strategy Brent Seaborn wrote in a recent email to supporters...

...A lot depends on what Giuliani would do if he became the nominee...

...It has released its first radio advertisements in Iowa and New Hampshire...

...Compared with McCain and Romney, Giuliani has spent relatively little money...

...His policy initiatives and public statements are designed to assuage conservatives...

...The terrorists pose different challenges for us," Giuliani told me...

...It's a different set of things that we have to think about in how to affect them and how to deal with them...

...The real test will likely come in the fall...

...An aide says the campaign is now focused on publicizing the mayor's hiring of staff and gathering of supporters, while also trying not to exhaust the candidate or those who work for him...

...Romney spends most of his time attacking McCain, and Kansas senator Sam Brownback spends most of his time attacking Romney...

...I don't think America should torture anybody," Giuliani said, "for moral reasons and humanitarian reasons...

...Many people, including most of his competitors for the Republican nomination, don't seem to have thought through the consequences of Giuliani's ascendance...

...It has announced new endorsements in Iowa, Florida, California, Georgia, and South Carolina...

...It is a struggle he wants to lead, and one about which he has thought a great deal...

...The truth is that Giuliani rarely mentions 9/11 on the stump...

...Giuliani says many Democrats, and some Republicans, ignore the peculiar issues jihadism poses to the United States...

...I really don't...

...So far, Sen...

...He's not as late as he once was," says historian Fred Siegel, author of The Prince of the City, a book about Giuliani...

...One candidate seems ready to challenge Giuliani head-on...

...Romney had $8 million in the bank before we had telephones," says Jim Dyke, one of Giuliani's senior communications advisers...

...He says he would not attempt to rewrite the Republican platform...

...It also may be that the Republican party is undergoing a genuine realignment in priorities...

...So far Giuliani has added details to four of his commitments: promoting fiscal discipline in government, increasing America's competitiveness in the global economy, appointing strict constructionist judges and enacting tort reform, and moving America toward energy independence...

...Support for Giuliani boils down to two things...

...A combination of factors may have contributed to Giuliani's decline...

...And Giuliani is starting to show up at events on time...

...interests stretching back three decades...

...In the day I spent following Giuliani across western Iowa, during which the mayor spoke to hundreds of people, exactly two audience members asked him questions dealing with social issues...

...For now, Giuliani's main concern remains fundraising...

...A different set...

...Nothing is guaranteed in politics, of course...

...This week, the campaign plans to roll out Giuliani's commitment to reform health care...

...Despite his variance on some issues with some conservatives, a decline in national public opinion polls since early March, and a recent spate of harsh media coverage, Giuliani remains the frontrunner for the 2008 Republican nomination...

...That's when his opponents may finally wake up to the fact that Rudolph Giuliani has a better chance than they do at winning the Republican nomination...

...Pro-life voters compose a significant portion of the GOP's volunteer corps...

...Then came 9/11, and Giuliani's elevation in the American psyche to national hero...

...Among self-described "born again or evangelical" Christian Republicans, 69 percent said Giuliani would be acceptable...

...Then there is the war...

...Giuliani has visited Iowa only six times since entering the race...

...It has rolled out a foreign policy advisory board and a justice advisory committee...

...None of this matters unless there is a substantive reason for Giuliani's candidacy...

...When audiences question Giuliani, they tend to ask him about the war and what he would do to prosecute it...

...The attacks on Giuliani's business interests, former associates, and operatic personal life will mount as 2008 approaches...

...The mayor provides 12...

...It's about American politics in the aftermath of 9/11...

...But the trend is there...

...While he was mayor of New York, his police department worked on many counterterrorism investigations...

...Last week's Washington Post/'ABC News poll found that nearly half of the Republicans and Republican-leaning independents surveyed thought Giuliani is the candidate with the best chance of winning in 2008...

...Republicans respond to this argument...

...Thompson exchanged pleasantries with the union boss and discussed counterterrorism and first responders...

...But right now he is pointing out and reading aloud the signs above the different computers in the lab, which say things like "Dam Control" . . . "Electrical Grid" . . . "Water Supply...

...So far nothing else has come of the meeting, which was little noticed outside New York...

...But if we think we're getting any break for that, we're absolutely not aware enough of the enemy we're facing...

...The day after the Democratic-leaning International Association of Firefighters launched an attack on Giuliani, Fred Thompson met with the head of another anti-Giuliani firefighter union in New York City...

...Giuliani's candidacy isn't about 9/11...

...And he's preparing for the inevitable counterattack...

...This is just like . . . a . . . an emergency response center...

...The debate over "torture" illustrates these new challenges...

...The trend in support for Giuliani in Iowa Matthew Continetti is associate editor of The Weekly Standard...

...They haven't arrived at a compelling argument for why his candidacy would be harmful...

...Polls show Giuliani is the most competitive candidate against Clinton in a general election...

...He has the greatest amount of cash on hand, and his campaign has zero debt...

...The aides go on to say Giuliani has not yet fully engaged in the campaign, whether through personal retail politics, television and radio advertising, or direct mail...

...So far this summer he has lost his South Carolina campaign chairman to a criminal indictment, faced questions over his relationship with the Iraq Study Group, and seen a key southern ally, Louisiana senator David Vitter, admit to hiring a prostitute...

...He continues to lead in national polls and in many state polls...

...But he has not officially entered the race and will not take part in any televised debates until September at the earliest...

...This allows Giuliani to continue to build his organization, raise millions, and issue policy statements...

...And therefore, it makes sense to me that they wouldn't get the same benefits that you would get if you were waging war under the banner of a nation-state, a flag, a signatory to the Geneva conventions...

...A group of people who came back from Iraq about two months ago said to me, 'You know, we'd have this over with in three months if they wore uniforms.' Well, they don't wear uniforms...

...To date, the most prominent attack on Giuliani hasn't come from any of his fellow GOP candidates...

...When you take on different responsibilities," Giuliani told me, "you kind of have to think more broadly...

...Leaving a restaurant in Le Mars, Iowa, after Giuliani had spent an hour taking questions, I overheard one man enthusiastically say to another, "How'd you like to see him debate Hillary...

...In the Gallup poll, after reaching a low of 28 percent support in early June (while still leading the field), the mayor appears to have stabilized at 30 percent...

...Michael DuHaime, Giuliani's campaign manager, has said nominating hizzoner would put states such as New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, Connecticut, Washington, and Oregon in play for Republicans for the first time in years...

...Press releases from the Democratic National Committee have criticized his "failing leadership as mayor," his "divisive leadership," his law firm's lobbying activities, and much else...

...And there's no question Giuliani's decline has been real...

...Democrats and their affiliates have attacked him for actions he took (or failed to take) before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks...

...That may be happening to some extent, but it hasn't knocked Giuliani out of first place or undermined the rationale for his candidacy...

...It is clearly the most important issue for Republicans today, and it is the issue that engages Giuliani the most...

...and New Hampshire is also downward...

...One woman wanted to know the mayor's stance on gay rights...

...Charles Franklin, a political scientist and polling expert at the University of Wisconsin, estimates that the mayor's support has fallen around 8 percentage points nationally since March...