Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson appeared on the Laura Ingraham show to reiterate his stance with regard to Rudy Giuliani’s candidacy for the GOP nomination. Here’s the clip. Dobson also talks about McCain (unacceptable) and Romney (still on the list).

My thoughts on this are that at this point I haven’t made up my mind one way or another, but for me Giuliani cuts several ways. Good on the war on terrorism, bad on immigration, bad on gun control, good on law and order (except immigration, which is a pretty big hole), bad on abortion, and so forth. From a social con point of view he’s a decidedly mixed bag. From a straight conservative point of view he’s a decidedly mixed bag. Could I vote for him in the general election? If the choice is between Giuliani and Clinton or any other Democrat, yes I could. But it’s a tougher call than it ought to be, because as leader of the party he would move the GOP in directions it ought not go in my opinion, even while he’d be a stalwart ally in many respects. Did I mention that he’s a mixed bag?

For me personally, Guiliani is hands down better than any Democrat on the war, and that being the central issue of the time, he’d earn my vote against any Democrat. He’s also better on judges and on his approach to crime (except illegal immigration, where he’s awful). In the primaries, it’s a different story. I don’t know who I’ll support, but I doubt that it’ll be him. Both Romney and Thompson are just as good on the war and they’re more conservative on other issues. The same is true of all the other candidates except McCain and Paul. McCain it at least (mostly) good on the war. I am a little queasy about Romney’s evident flip-flopping and opportunism, fwiw. McCain is just as mixed as Giuliani for different reasons, but I trust him much less than I’d trust Giuliani. Giuliani is easily the most liberal GOP candidate in the race, so he starts at a disadvantage when it comes to earning my vote, as does McCain. But in the general election, I can’t write off either one. I don’t subscribe to the notion that losing is winning, not when there’s a war at stake. Any Republican but Paul would be better than any Democrat on the war, so the only Republican who’s unacceptable to me at this point is Ron Paul, which is too bad–he’s a crank in more ways than one, but at least he’s a crank who really wants a smaller government.

All of that is a long way to go to explain why I think it’s premature to dub Giuliani “unacceptable,” as Dobson has. But that’s what I think.