At debate, GOP candidates accuse each other of being the reincarnation of Hillary Clinton

The Republican base has long been dissatisfied with its candidates' perceived moderation on key issues. Rudy Giuliani is naturally the one most consistently attacked, but the sole reason he has been able to survive the Right's attack has been that the other major candidates all have flaws in the eyes of conservative leaders.

This was evident in tonight's Republican debate held in Orlando, FL: The major four pummeled each other's conservative credentials. This is of course expected in a primary, but the amount of material they have for these attacks is mind-boggling. So is the number of times these candidates are accusing their rivals of being "like Hillary Clinton," so many times that we don't even notice anymore! Compare this to the huge controversies that have erupted the rare times Obama or Edwards implicitly hint that Clinton is Bush-lite or an echo of Giuliani.

Let's review tonight's offensives:

• Fred Thompson attacked Rudy for his position on federal abortion funding or for his support of Democrat Mario Cuomo in 1994, saying that on all these cases, Giuliani sided with Hillary Clinton. Thompson also brought up Mitt Romney's 1994 Senate campaign against Kennedy in Massachusetts and his comments distancing himself from Ronald Reagan's legacy or from the pro-life movement. Said Thompson, "I didn't think there was any room to the left of Ted Kennedy."


• Romney also hit Giuliani on excessive taxing and spending. He said, “We're not going to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House by acting like Hillary Clinton."


• John McCain was particularly antagonistic towards Romney, who he repeatedly accused of pandering and weakness. In one of the strongest exchanges of the night, McCain said, “Governor Romney, you've been spending the last year trying to fool people about your record. I don't want you to start fooling them about mine. I stand on my record. I stand on my record of a conservative, and I don't think you can fool the American people."


• As for Giuliani, he simultaneously attacked his rivals for being closeted liberals ("Fred was the single biggest obstacle to tort reform in the United States Senate. He voted with Democrats, over and over again.") and defended himself from charges of excessive moderation: "I think it was good conservative record. I think, in every case, you can always find one exception or two to someone being absolutely conservative or absolutely this or absolutely that, but I think I had a heck of a lot of conservative results."

It is remarkable how much more divisive the GOP primary is when the party is being consistently led in general election polls.

Also, it appears Rudy Giuliani is making major efforts at quieting the Religious Right's hostility towards him. Tony Perkins, a leading social conservative who has been extremely critical of Rudy in the past few weeks, said today he was very pleased that Giuliani had told him he would be open to a federal marriage amendment if more states start legalizing gay marriage. Perkins obviously is not satisfied actually with such a weak position, but this is already a huge departure from Rudy's traditionally much more gay-friendly stance. It is evident that the Religious Right is trying to get Giuliani to move towards more conservative positions, slowly but surely, and that they will appear more friendly to him as long as they can push him to make new concessions.