Now that we come to the voting, I find myself where I was on NRO on August 31, 2004, and where I actually was since the fall of 2001: Rudy Giuliani for president.

Ramesh Ponnuru wrote a witty piece for National Review about Giuliani’s success in the pundit primary (the only early contest he has done well in). The pundits who oppose him have been for McRomson — flitting from candidate to candidate until they finally find the best anti-Giuliani. Anyone bothered by Romney’s or McCain’s flip flops should be equally bothered by the flip flops of the McRomson supporters. You shouldn’t be bothered: a pundit, like a candidate, should change his mind as a consequence of new facts or deeper reflection. So let me look first at the merits of McRomson.

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I have been pretty harsh on Fred Thompson, maybe too harsh. Once he finally got in the race and warmed up, his powerful political personality showed itself. He deserves the nation’s thanks for slapping down the kindergarten format of the Des Moines Register debate. The most damning thing anyone has said about Thompson was said by Thompson himself to Byron York, who asked him what his greatest achievements in the Senate were. Thompson talked about the accomplishments of the GOP majority during his Senate years. It is pretty sad when a veteran of the talk palace of the Senate can only take cover among his colleagues.

John McCain’s surge has tracked the Iraq surge, deservedly so. There is something splendid about his prescience, and his determination on this issue. He is also the only Republican to have the support of a big-deal Democrat, Joe Lieberman. Admittedly there is a little Senate clubbiness at work there, but no one else has been able to make it work for him. McCain’s surge stands out because it is one of his few high-profile issues on which he has been right. McCain made his national reputation in 2000 and has kept it not thanks to his mostly conservative record, but by busting our chops on campaign finance, immigration, taxes, whatever. During one of Frederick the Great’s battles, a general told him as their charge faltered, “Your majesty and I cannot take the enemy’s position all by ourselves.” But that is McCain’s preferred tactic.

Mitt Romney has been bedeviled throughout the race by the nail-polish glaze of phoniness. It is a glaze, and there is a real Romney underneath it. That man consists of his religion, which he defends eloquently; his ambition to follow in his father’s footsteps, and to succeed where he failed; and his confidence in his own intelligence and talents. Political principles are not part of the mix and have been adopted to suit circumstances. He is firm enough in his current beliefs. In the vulgar phrase, he will stay bought; considering his wealth, it might be better to say that he will stay with what he has bought. But those who are looking for Reagan redux are setting themselves up for disappointment.

Beyond McRomson lie Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Christians complain that pop culture depicts them as canting scoundrels, but they do not reflect that the type is maintained in part by real examples. Huckabee’s faux-naïve riff on Romney’s Mormonism and the siblings of Lucifer was slick, vulgar, and depraved — the image of the man who uttered it. Ron Paul says we should read the Constitution. So we should, but as I tried to show in a Corner post on the Louisiana Purchase, we must also think about it and, in many cases, interpret it. Ron Paul is a 72-year-old 20-year-old. Many of his followers are worse — truthers, southrons, crackpots Left and Right. They will boost him to unexpected heights in Iowa and New Hampshire, because this is their moment to shine.

Why Giuliani? He has a gaggle of good advisers, and has made a number of good pledges, but so have other candidates. He has a slew of medium-ish achievements in office, but so does Romney and, to a lesser extent, McCain. Giuliani stands head and shoulders above them because of two significant accomplishments, which are two more than anyone else in the race has. He solved one of the major problems of late twentieth century, and he coped with the greatest disaster so far of the 21st.