Agreed, however, if Rudy wins the nod in the primaries, he'll probably win in a landslide. The primaries will be very interesting.
In an almost evenly divided electorate the elections of 2000, 2004 and 2006 have shown the NE and Midwest states turning increasingly and firmly blue.
MN, PA, MI, IL, WI, & NJ were once states that could flip Republican. Those days appear to be over.
IA, OH, MO, CO, NM and (gasp!) AZ appear to be sliding that way too.
Hillary would win every state Kerry won, and I guarantee she'd win Iowa. I live here. NM, CO and MO would be in great danger. OH a tossup.
The GOP has to stop this slide or they're thin margins of 2000 and 2004 will be distant memories, like Reagan's 49 state landslide.
Giuliani has said he'd govern from the right and he's not the type of politiician who makes empty promises.
He'd make it impossible for a Democrat to win if he could take NY's 31 electoral votes. But he'd be competitive in all the states listed above, maybe even CA, OR, and WA.
His "moderate" Republican label is great, because he's not a moderate. Let the media think he is because he's actually a Ronald Reagan conservative on taxes, Gerald Ford on spending, and an originalist on Supreme Court justices, supporting judges like Scalia, Roberts and Alito.
Between the pro-lifers and the gun people here in New Hampshire, I just don't see Guiliani getting out of here without being seriously shredded. He's just not a "moderate" on these two issues: he loves abortion (esp. partial birth) and hates private gun ownership.