Yeah, it’s an NYT link, couldn’t find it elsewhere:

After months of conflicting signals on abortion, Rudolph W. Giuliani is planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights in public forums, television appearances and interviews in the coming days, despite the potential for bad consequences among some conservative voters already wary of his views, aides said yesterday. […]

The shift in emphasis comes as the Giuliani campaign has struggled to deal with the fallout from the first Republican presidential candidate debate, in which he gave halting and apparently contradictory responses to questions about his support for abortion rights.

Mr. Giuliani’s aides were concerned both because the responses opened him up to a new round of criticism from abortion critics, who have never been happy with the prospect of a Republican presidential candidate who supports abortion rights, while threatening to undercut his image as a tough-talking iconoclast who does not equivocate on tough issues. […]

Mr. Giuliani hinted at what aides said would be his uncompromising position on abortion rights yesterday in Huntsville, Ala., where he was besieged with questions about abortion and his donations to Planned Parenthood. “Ultimately, there has to be a right to choose,” he said.

Asked if Republicans would accept that, he said, “I guess we are going to find out.”

It’s already been acknowledged that Guliani is going to try to make up for his lack of credentials with the bible-thumpers with appeals to the war-monger & panic jockey faction. There is some overlap between the two, but with his decision to openly support abortion he’ll be an unintentional measuring stick as to how much, and what takes priority. If he wins the nomination anyway, or at least makes a relatively strong showing, then it will be because the base sees killing random swarthy-looking foreigners as more important than “saving” a lump of cells. This would prove the takeover of the party by neo-imperialists once and for all, and probably transform the Religious Right into an indie block overnight.

Hear me out on this: politically, I could care less. Both groups are the enemy anyway, and when the returns come in on Election Night I’ll probably be drunk, sitting at my desk playing Guild Wars. But morally, I can’t help but feel that this would be the ideal outcome. Their beliefs may be outright nuts, but I’ve always been a sucker for strong convictions, so I can grudgingly respect it if the thumpers divorce themselves from partisan politics over their view on abortion. It’s definitely not where I’d draw the line, but at least they draw one.

(* - In case it needs explanation, my use of the term refers to his enthusiastic support for a foreign policy that results in the death of people who are unarguably viable human beings, and the irony that he may be rejected for a more ambiguous reason. I would argue that the true “pro-choice” position would be to both support legal abortion AND a foreign policy of non-interference, while the true “pro-life” position would be that of Ron Paul.)

Edit: I realize though I’ve explained my view elsewhere, I haven’t clarified it on this site, and this post may confuse people, so here it is: I’m mostly pro-choice.  I feel it is a life, but up until the moment when it can live outside of the womb, it is also a parasite, and to put it bluntly, parasites are not morally equal to you & me.  Partial-birth abortion specifically is barbaric IMO, as the difference between a normal medical procedure and murder is a matter of inches, but in the early stages I see no problem.  As much as I’d like for immature people to simply not have unprotected sex, or for every unwanted child to be adopted, the world just does not work that way.  I ask that any comments on abortion specifically, and not on the overall subject of this post (the dueling influences on the right-wing and/or the 2008 election) be emailed to me (address here) rather than posted here, so as to not clutter it.