Patrick Casey has a good post up about Rudy's conservativeness, but here I just want to focus on Rudy's newly released position on judges. Captains Quarters has published a transcript of a speech to a GOP Executive Committee. If this truly represents Rudy's position, he will have very few issues with the conservative wing.

On the Federal judiciary I would want judges who are strict constructionists because I am. I'm a lawyer. I've argued cases in the Supreme Court. I've argued cases in the Court of Appeals in different parts of the country. I have a very, very strong view that for this country to work, for our freedoms to be protected, judges have to interpret not invent the Constitution. Otherwise you end up, when judges invent the constitution, with your liberties being hurt. Because legislatures get to make those decisions and the legislature in South Carolina might make that decision one way and the legislature in California a different one. And that's part of our freedom and when that's taken away from you that's terrible.

President Bush has the great model because I think as the President he did appointed some really good ones and both of them are former colleagues of mine - Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito. Justice Scalia is a former colleague of mine. Somebody that ... I think Chief Justice Roberts is a great chief justice and he's young and he can have a long career and that's probably the reason the President and Vice President chose him. I think those are the kinds of justices I would appoint – Scalia, Alito and Roberts. If you can find anybody as good as that, you are very, very fortunate.

And there you have it. Rudy is now saying he will nominate strict constructionists, and that Scalia, Alito, and Roberts are great examples of a strict constructionist. These are the magic words that conservatives have long waited to hear.In 1992 liberals gave Bill Clinton wide latitude on the death penalty and nafta because they knew they would get liberal justices. He promised it and they did get those justices.

In 2000, Bush explicitly stated that he would nominate justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. Conservatives gave him wide latitude on No Child Left Behind and "Compassionate Conservatism" as a code word for a little bit of big government programs.

Rudy is not breaking new ground here, it is worth remembering that a primary motivation for liberals and conservatives to win the presidency is the power to nominate judges. It has been speculated that it would be impossible for Rudy to win the nomination because social conservatives would never accept his pro-life and pro-gay, anti-gun views. But promise to go the right way on judges and this problem is almost completely nullified. Add in the fact that Rudy is the Democrats nightmare candidate because of what he brings to the electoral map (NY and NJ) and I think he will soon be the obvious front-runner.

Rudy is not a conservative in the gut on social matters. But he will nominate the kind of judges that social conservatives want on the bench. And that's the bottom line here.