The GOP ... Dragged into the 21st Century?

Rudy Giuliani's status as front-runner among Republican candidates for president, and his decision to come out of the closet as a pro-choice Republican, promises to make the Republican contest this year and next a much more entertaining spectator sport.

Time magazine says Giuliani has calculated that "the reign of social conservatives is coming to an end," that the crazies who've run that party pretty much into the stone-hard ground will not be able to veto his candidacy because of the re-jiggered primary season that will allow big, liberal states like California, New York, and possibly Florida to become major power brokers early in 2008.

And wouldn't it be something if just that suddenly the reign of the mullahs, and their mean, single-minded pursuit of federal control over women's bodies, came to a political deadend?

If we end up with Giuliani running against Hillary Clinton, what WILL the South do?

Dunno. But you can bet we'll be taping the Fox News debate Tuesday night to see how the moral absolutists beat up on Giuliani and especially how the newly anti-abortion Mitt Romney begins to rue his flip-floppery on the abortion issue.