Christopher Orr argues that Huckabee’s surge has made the Republican establishment eager to unite behind one candidate to stop him. Giuliani isn’t that candidate.
I sincerely doubt that the anti-Huckabee vote is going to wait around long enough to coalesce behind Giuliani, with his late-January-to-early-February timetable. On top of that, if you’re trying to sap Huckabee’s support, you probably don’t want to get behind a pro-choice candidate, which is somewhat akin to poking in the eye the very social conservatives you’re trying to coax back into the establishment fold.
The party establishment is against Huckabee, but I don’t think it’s in a panic. It has seen candidates it dislikes win primaries before. It doesn’t yet think Huckabee will go the distance. So while Orr’s analysis is interesting, I don’t think it’s right.