Democrats want Giuliani, all right

Of course, the Democrats would love to see the Republicans run Giuliani. But not (or at least, not exactly) for the reason usually given or assumed.

The Republicans would have to be out of their minds to pick a Wall-Street-loving (and loved) social libertarian, logically consistent though that position is in itself, after the Democrats won the midterms by returning to their party's socially conservative, economically populist, patriotic, Christian roots, inimical to neoconservatism on all four counts, and most numerously exemplified by African-Americans and by the electorally decisive group that is orthodox Catholics.

In any case, but especially if "Rudy" gets anything like a sniff of the Republican nomination, the Democrats should therefore be down on their knees begging Jim Webb, who clinched the Senate for them before demolishing Bush's State of the Union Address, to run. And they should be out finding him a socially conservative, economically populist, anti-war running mate who is either a churchgoing African-American or an orthodox Catholic (easy), and preferably both (also perfectly feasible).

Failing that, who? Clinton, merely because she happens to be a woman? Obama, merely because he happens to be black? Well, why not combine the two and draft Condoleeza Rice as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States? Or have I missed something?

Clinton is notable only for her husband is, and she failed to deliver health care reform. But that administration did give the American working class NAFTA and GATT, and it dismembered Yugoslavia in the interests of various Wahhabis and Holocaust-deniers. As for Obama, he is not an African-American, one of the descendants primarily of West African slaves (though also of their masters), with a highly distinctive culture which produced, among much else, the Civil Rights Movement. Obama might be black, but he is not black like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. And that is what makes him acceptable to the Democratic Party's grandees.

Meanwhile, John McCain, like the wounded and decorated Jacques Chirac, might look dreadful on television, but, in telling contrast to the draft-dodging Bill Clinton and George Bush, he is extremely unlikely to go shooting up the world. Even if, in common with Jim Webb, he does have the misfortune to be a white man. So, faced with either Clinton or Obama, why should economically populist, socially conservative, anti-war African-Americans or orthodox Catholics vote Democrat at all? There is only one possible reason why: if the Republican nominee were Rudolph Giuliani.