More on Giuliani and Romney

Dan Balz’s take (Washington Post) on the GOP foes:

Does either Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney have a practical and immediate solution for dealing with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States?

That question has been lost in the escalating debate between the two Republican presidential candidates this week over whether Giuliani was soft on illegal immigration as mayor of New York. Romney’s attack on Giuliani reflects his campaign’s emerging strategy after the former Massachusetts governor’s victory in the Iowa straw poll last Saturday.

Romney’s advisers have two goals. The first is to narrow the race as much as possible to a contest between Romney and Giuliani. The second is to cast Romney as the conservative and Giuliani as out of the GOP mainstream. They hope that will open up a path to the nomination by allowing Romney to seize the conservative mantle before voters have a chance to make a real judgment about the conservative bona fides of Fred Thompson, who won’t enter the race officially before September.

Romney can’t easily question Giuliani’s support for abortion or gay rights because that brings back questions about his own conversions on those issues. Immigration, still a hot button among Republican primary and caucus voters, is his chosen issue. Click here for the rest of the column.

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