Giuliani for GOP presidential nominee (Updated)

It's a tough call (I only decided in the past week) because each of the candidates is good and flawed, but my choice will be Rudy Giuliani.

If it were just a matter of flawed then the choice would be easier for the lack of good.

Giuliani, despite his lack of credentials as a social conservative, put together a great team and did a nice job in the debates in terms of expressing a solid conservative foundation. I was satisfied with his pledge to nominate judges in the mold of Scalia.

I think Rudy would do an excellent job of prosecuting the war on terrorism (that is, quashing the actions of radical Islamists while combating the ideology that prompts it) while pursuing sensible fiscal and economic policy. The same could probably be said of Romney, McCain and even Huckabee, perhaps, but I judge Giuliani as the most solid overall.

I'm ignoring polls that predict how each candidate would fare against the Democratic nominee at this point. Those polls change slightly less than the wind. Ultimately the campaign and the candidates determine that outcome. Romney lost some support from me because I do think that his Mormonism will be an issue for some, but more importantly Romney doesn't seem to have the quality of being broadly likable.

Some conservatives voice a concern that a vote for Giuliani is a vote for McCain over Romney. I can live with that, though I'd prefer Romney over McCain. Yet here again I would ignore the polling data that show McCain as the better general election candidate of the two.

Whatever the case, the GOP nominee will be vastly preferable to the alternative.


Update:
Paul Mirengoff over at Power Line posted similar thoughts at almost the same time I posted, albeit without revealing how he intends to vote. The primary schedule gives him a bit more time to decide ... and he may have more reason to nix Giuliani pending the outcome of today's elections.

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