Regular readers know I am a Newt Gingrich for ‘08 supporter, but since Newt hasn’t declared and there’s a good chance he won’t declare, I’m pretty solid in Giuliani’s camp. Personally I don’t care about the so-called issues that will keep Conservatives from voting for Rudy. I’m a Conservative and I support him.

The primary issue for me isn’t the Second Amendment, Roe v. Wade or whether or not Rudy once wore a dress for a comedy skit (McCain did too). I actually think the latter bodes well for both candidates that did because it shows they are willing to laugh at theirselves, unlike a certain politician who ran opposite of President Bush in ‘04 whose botched jokes were at the expense of others.

Taxes and how the nation combats Islamism are primary for me, and I think they are connected. A high increase in taxes will result in a drop for support to fight Islamism, that is unless you are of the impression the government should function as an employer too. Quite obviously, I do not.

Giuliani spoke in front of the Stanford University’s Hoover Institution over the weekend and reiterated why I am supporting him. Giuliani said the GWOT had done “damage” to the image of the United States, something that is quite certain but for different reasons than critics of the war have mentioned thus far, and proposes on how to correct that wrong impression.

“We have to say to the rest of the world, ‘America doesn’t like war,’” Mr. Giuliani said. “America is not a military country. We’ve never been a militaristic country,” he added, saying national leaders have fallen into an “analytical warp” by defining the battle as a war on terrorism and not, as he deemed it, a “war of the terrorists against us.”

On taxes and how to fund the war:

Democrats, he said, would want to raise taxes to pay the higher costs of a war. “That shows a dividing line, and to me, a misunderstanding of how our economy works,” Mr. Giuliani said. He said that while Republicans believe that the American economy is “essentially a private economy,” Democrats “really believe, honest, that it is essentially a government economy.”

Giuliani also proposed to rename the Republican Party to the “party of freedom,” but to do so would require explanation on his account to erase the constant smears of what it means to be a Conservative. A Conservative, at one’s core, is the limitation of government in all facets of life, because a Conservative believes the less government, the better and more free.

It is this, dare I say it, Reagan-esque quality that I see in Giuiliani. And I must admit, it makes me rather excited as Reagan was the first president to serve while I was alive and had developed a memory (I was two when Reagan took office). I am a Reagan Conservative.