Below, Ralph references David Greenberg's Post op-ed on Rudy Giuliani. Writes Greenberg,"As any New Yorker can tell you, the last word anyone in the 1990s would have attached to the brash, furniture- breaking mayor was 'liberal' -- and the second-to-last was 'moderate.'"

That's more than a bit of an overstatement: take, for instance, Conservative Party chairman Mike Long, who repeatedly withheld the party's line from Giuliani because of the former mayor's positions on abortion and gay rights. Former Staten Island borough president Guy Molinari, a Giuliani ally, even accused Long of being"on a mission to destroy Rudy Giuliani."

There's no doubt that on some social issues (usually related to crime or education) Giuliani took positions as mayor that were strongly opposed by New York City liberals. (He also enjoyed considerable success in both of these areas, especially education.) And there's also no doubt that Upper West Side liberals never warmed to Giuliani—as illustrated in their strong support for David Dinkins and their enthusiastic backing of Giuliani's second opponent, Ruth Messinger, who the mayor crushed in his 1997 re-election bid.

But I fear that columns like Greenberg's minimize what should be the central critique of Giuliani—namely, that on four key issues (gay rights, abortion rights, gun control, and immigration) candidate Giuliani has offered dramatically different positions than did Mayor Giuliani, even though at least the first three of these are the sort of issues that should illustrate a candidate's core beliefs. In that respect, candidate Giuliani has seemed like nothing more than an opportunist, and has tarnished his mayoral legacy.