by Sanford Levinson

I am not a fan of Rudy Guliani, but that does not stop me from offering the following advice should he really wish to be president: He should run as an independent, with a conservative Democrat (can you spell Joseph Lieberman?) as his running mate. As a recent article in The Washington Post pointed out, it is really quite fanciful to believe that Guliani can survive Republican primaries disproportionately representing the religious-right "base" that will, under no circumstances, cotton to a three-times married (one marriage annulled, another ending in an acrimonious divorce), cross-dressing (on one memorable public occasion), social liberal on gays, lesbians, and abortions (who, to boot, endorsed Mario Cuomo over George Pataki when they ran against each other for governor). The two-party system remains vulnerable to a challenge, and Rudy, for better and, definitely, for worse, is precisely the kind of person who could explode a lot of verities. He would offer Republicans who are sick and tired of the stranglehold over their party of the religious right a "safe harbor," without having to vote for, say, Hillary Clinton. Ditto those (unlike myself) who admire Lieberman and feel his pain at the ostensible leftward drift of the Democratic Party. One can easily imagine such a ticket winning enough electoral votes to throw the election into the House (the long-awaited train wreck), and there are even scenarios, albeit longshot that could have them winning enough of the large states plus some others to take the whole thing. The Republican Party is imploding, and one can never be sure about Democrats. In any event, if Rudy really wants to shake up American politics, running a doomed campaign for the Republican nomination is surely not the way to do it.