Uh huh. McCain is the best thing that ever happened to him insofar as he’s become a lightning rod for all the abuse Rudy would have and should have taken for statements like this:

“Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens,” Giuliani said at the time. “If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you’re one of the people who we want in this city. You’re somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair.”

Mitt rattled his cage last week so today his campaign put this out. Immigration, abortion, civil unions, abortion — all issues which, in one way or another, Rudy’s inched right notwithstanding his image as the iron man whose commitment to principle admits no pandering. I wonder why his myriad reversals seem to have cost him less than Mitt’s flip-flop on abortion. Presumably it’s because Rudy’s basically a one-issue candidate and on that one issue he really has been resolute. Mitt’s sort of one-issue too insofar as he’s running very consciously as the social con candidate, but on his one issue that isn’t really one issue he’s very noticeably changed his mind.

Exit question: Whom do you trust more to stick to his newfound guns if elected, Mitt or Rudy?