I LOVE MY LITMUS TESTS, BUT OH YOU KID

The anti-abortion folks at LifeNews.com put their spin on a new poll:

Pro-abortion former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani leads all potential 2008 Republican presidential candidates in Iowa in a new poll taken by the Des Moines Register despite an overwhelming majority of GOPers saying they are pro-life.

The newspaper surveyed likely Republican causucs-goers and found that Giuliani leads with the support of 30 percent of Republicans.

The poll found Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who has a fairly pro-life voting record and has visited the state twice in recent months, the choice of 17 percent while Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, who mostly votes pro-life, received 6.5 percent....

Romney, Allen, Pataki, Huckabee, and Brownback are all under 5 percent; 29 percent of those surveyed are undecided. The Register story, which is here, adds this:

Giuliani, who has visited Iowa once since 2004, is also viewed as favorable by two-thirds of the poll's respondents, the highest rating among the eight Republicans listed as potential candidates in the survey.

The LifeNewsers and most everyone else -- including you, probably -- expect this all to turn around as soon as Republican voters realize Rudy is pro-choice, pro-gay rights, and pro-gun control.

As I've said before, I'm not so sure. I keep thinking it's going to be more like the end of Some Like It Hot:

Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh... I'm a man.

Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.

In other words, Republicans may have already developed a hopeless infatuation with Rudy, based on a hero-myth they've built up in their heads, and that myth may be very, very difficult for litmus-test imposers to dislodge.

Democrats will generally vote for someone who just seems to be competent, but Republicans are always desperate for a manly man they believe will lead them out of the wilderness. It doesn't take much to sell them on that myth -- hell, they believe it about Bush -- and they certainly believe it about Giuliani.

Many of us Democrats have very mixed feelings about Bill, Hillary, John Kerry, and so on, but Republicans generally decide that someone is "good" or "evil" and stick with that decision come hell or high water. That's why their enthusiasm for Bush is still at the hero-worship stage. Their opinion of Rudy is that he's "good" the way the Clintons are "evil." I don't know if anything can cure them of this crush, but I'm sure it would take a lot more than just facts.