Politics on the Hudson

Brent Seaborn, strategy director for Rudy Giuliani, e-mailed a memo to members of Team Rudy today that recaps recent polls showing the former New York City mayor still leading the Republican presdiential field in the polls.

“Primary elections usually set up contrasts,’’ Seaborn wrote. “An interesting component of the race is that no candidate has clearly positioned themselves as the social conservative alternative to Mitt Romney. Fred Thompson entered the race expecting to take the position as the primary social conservative alternative to Romney, but Mike Huckabee has also impressed many primary voters and there is no clear social conservative favorite.’’

Seaborn continued, “Most notably, Mayor Giuliani continues to hold strong with socially conservative voters. Socially conservative voters are becoming more comfortable with Mayor Giuliani as they hear him speak clearly about his agenda. Two of the mayor’s 12 commitments that are most important are ‘to increase the number of adoptions, reduce the number of abortions and protect the quality of life for our children.’ And no candidate has better credentials on judges and the mayor has committed to ‘reform the legal system and appoint strict constructionist judges.’‘’

The memo also contends that Giuliani “is clearly the strongest candidate to run against Sen. Clinton in the general election and is likely the only Republican candidate that can beat her in 2008.’’

According to Seaborn, “In the most recent state general election polling, Mayor Giuliani beats Hillary Clinton in swing Republican states of Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Nevada. More importantly, the mayor puts blue states like Connecticut, New Jersey, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington in play.’’