Rudy Giuliani was stuck in 2004 when he attacked Dems for wanting to "go on defense" against terrorists. As were leading Dems for defensively responding that Rudy was being mean and divisive -- instead of going on offense and attacking Republicans for their reckless, destabilizing foreign policy.

But it's Rudy and his fellow Republicans that have the bigger problem.

I've written before that the conservative movement has yet to grasp why they lost in 2006.

A big part of it is that they've squandered their advantage on national security, thanks to the Iraq debacle.

Yet pretty much all of the Republican presidential candidates are advocating the continuation of the neocon track we're on.

Rudy says "we will remain on offense" and not "wave the white flag on Iraq." John McCain jokes about bombing Iran. Newt Gingrich talks of World War III.

Fred Dalton Thompson is stoking interest by blogging that "we are hearing demands that we abandon the people of the Middle East who have stood up to Islamo-fascism ... If we retreat precipitously, the price for that betrayal will be paid first in blood and freedom by the Iranian people, the Kurds, the Afghanis, the secular Lebanese, the moderates in Pakistan and the Iraqis themselves."

This remains the conservative worldview: that there is a singular "Islamofascist" army across the Arab/Muslim world that can only be defeated with brute force alone.

No understanding of the complex civil war in Iraq. No understanding of the Sunni-Shia and Arab-Persian divisions throughout the region. No understanding of the range of ideologies in the Iranian government.

No understanding of how attacking the wrong targets has created more terrorists. No understanding of the diplomatic openings currently available to resolve Arab differences with Israel, and our differences with Iran.

In the aftermath of 9/11, there was no interest among voters in understanding all these aspects of the Middle East.

But it's a different story now.

After brute force alone proved woefully insufficient to achieve our objectives, there is little appetite for more crude bluster, little interest in permanently occupying Iraq and little interest in taking on more regime change.

If there was, Republicans could have successfully played the national security card again in 2006.

Yet the conservative base is unmoved, so convinced they are that our occupation of Iraq is the only thing preventing terrorists from coming here (logic that escapes those in London, Madrid and elsewhere.)

In turn, Republican candidates have little choice but to reflect this worldview, no matter how detached it is from reality, or how far away it is from the rest of the American electorate.

The best they can offer is a better managed descent into World War III.

That won't be an easy thing for Republicans to fix in 2008. The issue of national security is too central, and the degree of detachment is too great.

However, Democrats would be wise to challenge this head on now, lest the eventual Republican nominee tries to disingenuously modulate his rhetoric next year.

The current GOP rhetoric should be held up to the light and challenged on its merits with a fully fleshed out alternate worldview.

So every voter will know, before the general election battle is joined, that every Republican candidate is promising more of the rotten same.