Top Republican Presidential Candidates Woo Conservative Voters at CPAC

Republican presidential hopefuls Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney courted conservative voters Friday, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. While both candidates have managed to perform well in early polling, both winning head-to-head match-ups with Democratic hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards or Barack Obama, Giuliani and Romney, along with John McCain, may find themselves having to fight long and hard to fully engage the most conservative portion of the Republican party's base.

Giuliani, dubbed "America's Mayor" after the entire country watched him deal with the aftermath of 9/11, makes many Republican voters nervous at the thought of seeing him as the eventual Republican nominee next year. Says Pauline Bostron, who is attending the conference this week: "I think he was real brave and so forth after 9/11, but my gosh, you don't run a whole country on that."

One of the problems many conservatives have with Giuliani is his stance on many social topics often considered planks in the standard Republican platform. Giuliani has liberal views on gun control, abortion, and gay marriage, and his personal life - three wives - is often seen as a large detriment.

McCain as well has many facets of his public service that anger, and even confuse, Republican voters. McCain refers to himself as a strong conservative, but a quick look at his stance on nominating judges, where McCain was one of the "gang of 14," that effectively blocked President Bush from nominating truly conservative judges last year. For many Republicans, that move, what they consider a truly egregious error in judgment, is enough to sour them on the Arizona Republican Senator.

Another possible strike against McCain is his recent history of introducing bills many Republicans have trouble swallowing. It is a topic Mitt Romney invoked in his speech to the gathered audience of conservatives.