Perhaps you are correct. But what seems clear is that Americans do not want another candidate like Bush.
Certainly no one can claim that either Her Majesty nor Guiliani are quite like Bush.
If you look at the statistics about issues, it would seem that Guiliani is fairly close to most American attitudes with a fairly liberal social agenda and (relatively) conservative fiscal orientation - or at least rhetoric. It may not be the opinions of people at FR, nor even the people in your neighborhood, but it does seem to reflect aggregate opinion. This is why he does pretty well in the national polls.
Given the amount of rhetoric that especially right-wing talk radio has given to supporting the current administration in the last 7 years, and the relative dissatisfaction there has been with the leadership, it will be tough to get most Americans to vote for someone even closely related with Bush policies, even if the majority of them were not all that bad. Naturally the Democrats will do their best to make any Republican candidate into a Bush clone. The further away that candidate is from the Texan draw and swagger, the less effective that strategy will be.
Running against the establishment is always popular. Running against a party whose President has Nixonian poll numbers is a must.
And to relegate life and death issues such as abortion and our 2nd Amendment RIGHTS (a CONSTITUTIONAL right, no less) to the term, "social" issues, is plain wrong, and against what should be, and still is (last time I checked), part of our CORE values, principles, and platform.
Except for the border/illegal issues, lack of using the line item veto more to control spending, reaching out "across the aisle" to our domestic enemies (the liberal dems), Bush has done a decent, fairly Conservative job in office.
His Supreme Court appointees, while not as rabidly Conservative as I'd like them, were pretty good (especially in comparison to some previous appointees by Republican presidents), and his (no matter what he SAID while running for office) outward support for the 2nd Amendment (particulalry when Ashcroft was AG, and Bolton was at the UN) was great.
So to say that we'd be better getting as far away from a Bush clone is an ASSININE, demonRAT-like thing to say on a CONSERVATIVE forum like FR.
If anything, we need to find someone with the GOOD points of President Bush, AND a MORE Conservative, hard-nosed view on the items he has been dem/RINO-like on.
Picking an arrogant (yes, that's the opposite of Bush), elitist (again, the opposite of Bush), northeastern-corridor (O.K., so he was born in enemy territory, at least his formative years were in "God's Country"), LIBERAL (Bush has a few liberal tendencies, while RINO-rudy is 99.9% liberal) like judy ruliani (infamous cross-dresser rudy is DEFINITELY the opposite of Bush on this one too) would be just "great" for our country and our party.
Go knock yourself out supporting and voting for this LIBERAL RINO POS.
That's a very good point. He is also poised and, dare I say, classy in his way. I think he's a Liberal who dabbles with Republican principle, but he is well-spoken and has a quality of, for lack of better word, elegance. Yet I think he'd be one of the few candidates who could lose to Hillary. She's not that hard to beat, IF she gets the Dem nomination!
I get irritated with Rush often enough, but I'll give him this: he welcomes me to think my own thoughts. I am glad he hasn't seemed to lean one way or the other for any of the primary candidates (with the recent exception of Romney tossing him under the bus!). I like that he has held his cards to his chest. I am disappointed that Hugh Hewitt and Ann Coulter object to Fred on such weak stuff -- Romney advocates his own Nanny State national health care, for Pete's sake!!! As for Laura Ingraham -- if that's an ally, who needs enemies? Her voice is deep, but her message is shrill.
No wonder your observation, ... further away that candidate is from the Texan draw and swagger .... It isn't like Republican pundits haven't made their disdain loud and clear and kept any praise to themselves. And the MSM gages GOP stands through them. They see no praise for Bush and all complaints from pundits in his own party! How great is that when they're running Hillary Vader, the most repellent political personality in history?