It has become downright predictable.  Every time a poll is published showing former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani leading the field of GOP candidates for 2008, the response from pundits is the same:  Voters don't know him yet.  They don't know he's pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control.  Since when was America's Mayor cloaked in anonymity?

Rudy Giuliani has been in the public eye since his much publicized war with the New York crime bosses in the 1980's.  During his two terms at the helm of America's largest city, he was one of the nation's best known political figures, and hardly a news story could be done on him without mention of the presumed contradiction of his liberal social views with his membership in the Republican Party. 

Voters don't know his positions yet?  Are you kidding me?  The media spent eight years wondering aloud how such a socially liberal politician could be a member of the Republican Party.  They're the one's who've made his opinions so universally known!

Rudy Giuliani's social views put him at odds with many Republican primary voters.  That much is certain.  What is also certain is that the global war on terror is a fight for our very survival and is a war that will outlast the current President, and likely a few more Presidents to come.  In Giuliani we have a man who was at ground zero of the opening volley in this war.  It was he who managed the city of New York's response to the 9/11 attacks and it was he who gave back a charitable contribution to the Saudis when their representative blamed the attack on America's support for Israel.  His resolve and his mettle have already been tested, and if public opinion polls are any indication, Americans like what they have seen.

The War on Terror has only just begun.  If national security remains the top issue in 2008 as it was in 2004, a Giuliani candidacy is to be underestimated only at his opponents' political peril.