Updated from the top. Please treat this as a blog-within-a-blog, come back often, and scroll down till you hit something you saw on your last visit.

• McCain Backs Gun Rights After Shootings
• Rudy: social conservatives should get over
  being socially conservative Update: context added
• McCain Closing On Guiliani?
• Hillary Losing Donors To Obama
• McCain on tax policy
• McCain Tackles The Tax Code

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McCain Backs Gun Rights After Shootings

LAREDO, Texas (AP) - Sen. John McCain says the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech does not change his view that the Constitution guarantees everyone the right to carry a weapon.

"We have to look at what happened here, but it doesn't change my views on the Second Amendment, except to make sure that these kinds of weapons don't fall into the hands of bad people," McCain said Monday in response to a question.

The Arizona Republican, who was campaigning in this Texas-Mexico border city, said he didn't know the details of the attacks at Virginia Tech.

"I do believe in the constitutional right that everyone has, in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, to carry a weapon," he said. "Obviously we have to keep guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens." ...

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Rudy: social conservatives should get over being socially conservative Update: context added
Bryan Preston

Yup. Rudy Giuliani may have just cost himself the nomination.

“Our party is going to grow, and we are going to win in 2008 if we are a party characterized by what we’re for, not if we’re a party that’s known for what we’re against,” the former New York mayor said at a midday campaign stop.

Republicans can win, he said, if they nominate a candidate committed to the fight against terrorism and high taxes, rather than a pure social conservative.

“Our party has to get beyond issues like that,” Giuliani said, a reference to abortion rights, which he supports.

Early reax to the comment: decidedly negative.

I’m a social con. I was giving Giuliani a close look in spite of quite a few things, because he projects strength on the war. But telling social conservatives to “get over it” is arrogant. It also betrays what he really thinks about the pro-life movement. We don’t define ourselves by “what we’re against,” but by what we’re for: the right to life. It’s the most basic right.

JPod questions whether the reporter got the quote accurate, and it’s always wise to approach any MSM report on any Republican saying anything, with skepticism. But still.

Coupled with Giuliani’s recent flap over federal funding of abortion, this builds a high wall between him and the socially conservative base of the party. I would chalk it up to being a rookie mistake, but Giuliani’s no rookie. He’s just a social liberal who happens to be strong on the war, running for the nomination of a socially conservative party. If there’s a political marriage in the offing, it will be one that features a shotgun.

Update: We have context. ...

Ed Morrissey has more here.

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McCain Closing On Guiliani?
John Hinderaker

CNN released a new poll today, in which it compared the existing or rumored Republican candidates. Here are the results; click to enlarge:

With all the candidates in the race, Giuliani has only a three point lead over McCain. His lead widens a bit if Gingrich and Fred Thompson are not both included. I haven't had time to study the internals, assuming they're available, but note what it says at the bottom of the graphic: "Interviews with 1,218 adult Americans, including 312 blacks and 768 whites...." If the poll's respondents really were 26% black, that's a ridiculous over-sample. Further, there were only 368 Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, so the margin of error on the Republican side is 5%.

So it's hard to have a lot of confidence in the results; still, ...

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McCain Closing On Guiliani?

Hillary Losing Donors To Obama
Ed Morrissey

Hillary Clinton and her supporters had thought that the 2008 primary race would be nothing less than a coronation march, as the supporters of her husband all came together to return the White House keys to the Clinton family. It turned into a dogfight instead, and some of her husband's former colleagues have decided to back another dog in the fight. Barack Obama has managed to convince some of Bill's big fundraisers to support his candidacy over that of the former First Lady:

As Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton seeks to reassemble the Democratic money machine her husband built, some of its major fund-raisers have already signed on with Senator Barack Obama.

Among the biggest fund-raisers for Mr. Obama’s campaign are as many as a half-dozen former guests of the Clinton White House. At least two are close enough to the Clintons to have slept in the Lincoln bedroom....

Why have so many former backers slipped away from the latest effort to elect a Clinton to the presidency? The short answer is that Hillary is no Bill. She does not translate well to the stump, something that many people noticed about her during her run for the Senate. While at times she can be warm and humorous, most often she exhibits almost none of the charm that her husband made famous.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, exudes charm and a gravitas that hides a rather callow CV. He has all of two years in national elective office, and has no depth on policy questions. Obama makes Hillary look experienced, and yet significant figures in Democratic fundraising have migrated to his campaign.

What does that mean for both candidates? It means that the powers of the party have started to realize that Hillary isn't inevitable. ...

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McCain on tax policy
By: Jim Addison

John McCain is taking a somewhat different approach to taxes than his rivals for the Republican nomination. Since he has a history of public skepticism about tax rate cuts, he wouldn't have much credibility if he became a sudden convert to tax-cutting during a Presidential campaign. He will adopt "reform" as his approach in a speech today, as Captain's Quarters reports:

[...] (See my excerpt below -- BF)

Tax reform is actually a much more fertile ground for conservatives than more marginal rate cuts. We are coming closer to the Law of Diminishing Returns on rate cuts. The stimulative effect on the economy from reducing rates shrinks as the rates themselves shrink, and so does the ability of increased economic activity to "pay for" tax cuts with increased revenues.

There are any number of ways to cut taxes still, but they are less popular than income tax rate cuts because fewer people pay them: capital gains and estate taxes could be eliminated altogether with positive long-term economic effects, but they probably won't be since most of those who pay them are of above average income.

Reform, though, remains undone. The tax code is ridiculous, the rules are ridiculous, the record-keeping and preparation of forms is a drain on the economy for no tangible benefit. Everyone understands this, so it could be an easier sell. It's a good thing McCain is putting the subject back on the table.

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McCain Tackles The Tax Code
Ed Morrissey

John McCain, looking for some conservative mojo to break out of an early slump on the stump, will outline his plan to overhaul the federal tax code at a speech today in Memphis. Speaking in the heart of what may soon become Fred Territory, McCain will pledge to end the "Byzantine" tax laws that have created an entire industry out of determining how to pay Uncle Sam:

In a major economic policy speech today, Senator McCain will pledge to fix what he calls an "incomprehensible" and "Byzantine" federal tax code, casting himself as the candidate who will fight for changes that others have failed to achieve.

The speech to the Economic Club of Memphis is the second in a series of substantive addresses Mr. McCain is delivering in an effort to revive an ailing campaign and recapture the sharp-tongued candor that won him support in his first presidential bid eight years ago. ...

It's a good topic for McCain. He has long been a proponent of fiscal discipline, and this flows naturally from his activism on pork and other spending issues. It also will soothe some bruised feelings over McCain's lack of support for the Bush tax cuts when they first came to Congress. Depending on how far McCain goes in his proposals, it could help blunt the addition of Steve Forbes to Rudy Giuliani's campaign. ...

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Yesterday's roundup: 

• 2007.04.15 Decision '08/Free Speech Roundup
  • Florida legislator calls illegal aliens “illegal aliens"
  • The Media Cornucopia
  • Remember Free Speech?
  • Al not-so-Sharpton, Racist, Anti-Semitic, Riot-Inciting ...
  • Dawn’s Early Light …
  • Hillary's Conundrum
  • Truth Will Out …
  • Case Closed