Julie Annie will fade, says Romney

JOHNSTON, Iowa (AP) - Mitt Romney says the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination will come down to Rudy Giuliani and a more conservative challenger. Like Mitt Romney.

It's no surprise that Giuliani is doing well in national polls of Republicans, Romney said Friday, because candidates with more conservative views on social issues such as abortion and gay rights are splitting the support of like-minded voters.

At some point, the former Massachusetts governor said, the party's conservative base will coalesce around a single candidate, making it tougher for Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City.

"Those of us who represent that base will find that we can get that support and ultimately face up one-to-one with Mayor Giuliani," Romney said. "At that point he'll have a more challenging time because I do not believe the Republican Party is going to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House by acting like Hillary Clinton."

Giuliani supports abortion rights and has favored gay rights and gun control. On abortion in particular, Giuliani has sought to ease the worries of conservatives by pledging to appoint judges in the mold of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

Romney said that's not enough.

"I think being pro-life is more than saying you'll appoint strict constructionist judges," Romney said.

He spoke during a taping of Iowa Public Television's "Iowa Press" program and later during a meeting with reporters.

Mitt does have a point. According to the latest average from Real Clear Politics Julie Annie has 28.6%, Thompson has 18.4%, McCain has 13.7%, Romney has 11.3% and the others are in the single digits. This means that 71.4% of Republicans do not want Giuliani. Its just that there are so many other candidates for them to choose from.

I predict that if Thompson and Romney were to announce that they were teaming up, it wouldn't matter who was at the top of the ticket, and the others were to drop out that Julie's support would evaporate like a snow ball in a blast furnace.

Of course that won't happen. One thing nearly every presidential candidate of any party has in common with all other presidential candidates is a gigantic ego. Most of them will hold on well past the point where there is any realistic hope of victory.

But if they were to actually put the country ahead of their own ambition they could keep both RINO Giuliani and Mrs. Bill Clinton out of the White House.