I like Kate O’Beirne.? She’s always seemed bright and articulate on cable news — a calm voice of the Buckleyite conservatism of our past — and she was nothing but classy when I met her in person at an NR?function last year.? But the column she has penned on the presidential chances of Rudy Giuliani for the latest edition of National Review comes very close to being nothing more than a hit piece on America’s Mayor.

Unfortunately, the column in its entirety requires a subscription to access online.? About half of the column can be found here, though a little sleuthing over at Free Republic may be able to get you the whole article (wink, wink).? O’Beirne’s column can be summed up as follows:

1) Rudy is America’s Mayor, insanely popular, and a great fundraiser.

2) BUT Rudy’s positions on social issues are unacceptable to most conservatives.

3) SO Rudy’s presidential chances are doomed.

The article is chalked full of the conventional “wisdom” of the Boston-NYC-DC corridor, that same region that predicted for ages that President Nelson Rockefeller would be a reality despite all the indications to the contrary from, you know, the bulk of America.? Not once does the column attempt to think outside the box, to consider what the impact of a social issues shift of a Giuliani campaign would be.? Instead, O’Beirne views a Rudy candidacy?through?parameters narrow enough to allow her to reach her desired conclusion, one that eliminates Rudy from the roster of likely Republican nominees.

I think O’Beirne and those like her who have spent a bit too much time amongst the eastern establishment will be quite surprised in just 18 months when Rudy finishes in the top 3 in Iowa.? If Mitt Romney, George Allen, and John McCain can all shift in varying degrees rightward on abortion over the past ten years, Rudy can at least make it over the acceptability threshhold on that and other cultural issues, and, given how much conservatives want to like Rudy according to every single poll that’s taken on the issue, acceptability is all he’ll need.?

I would also warn O’Beirne and others not to put too much stock into ancient quotes from the ’80s and ’90s that make Rudy sound like a liberal.? What must be remembered is that Rudy was campaigning to win votes in one of the nation’s most midnight-blue cities.? It’s true that Rudy’s mayoral campaigns are chalked full of liberal quotes.? But what’s also true is that while Rudy campaigned as a liberal, he governed as a conservative.? Just check the record.? Rudy was a Reaganite on taxes, a Gingrichite on cutting and reforming government, and a Bushite on toughness and the bad guys.? Even on social issues, Rudy was more of a pragmatist than anything.? A socially liberal ideologue would never have padlocked porn shops in the name of order.? But Rudy made himself sound like a liberal to New Yorkers to get elected and then governed from the center-right, just like Bill Clinton made himself sound like a conservative to the nation to get elected and governed from the center-left.? In 2008, Rudy will be campaigning to win the nation — a much more conservative electorate than he faced in New York — and will run on his conservative record, not away from it.? I would ask NR to analyze that sort of run, but we’ll probably have to give the conventional wisdom a little more time to catch up to the true wisdom of the American people.