Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani’s campaign shrugged off a New York Times report on Monday that leading Christian conservatives are considering backing a third-party candidate if he won the nomination because he did not represent their views.
 
Conservatives are seen as a must-have for any Republican nominee and Giuliani has had some trouble convincing them he is their candidate because of his support for abortion rights and gay rights.
 
Leading figures including James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Tony Perkins of Family Research Council discussed such a third-party move this weekend on the sidelines of a meeting of the Council for National Policy, the newspaper reported. 

Excerpt from the NY Times piece:

Almost everyone present at the smaller group’s meeting expressed support for a written resolution stating that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate we will consider running a third-party candidate,” participants said. 
 
The participants said that the group chose the qualified term “consider” because it had not yet identified an alternative candidate, but that it was largely united in its plans to bolt the party if Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, became the nominee. The participants spoke on condition of anonymity because the Council for National Policy meeting and the smaller meeting were secret, but they said members of the smaller group intended to publicize the resolution. 

In response , the Giuliani camp pointed to a Gallup survey out last week that showed 30 percent of Republicans who described themselves as conservatives as backing Giuliani, ahead of the rest of the pack, and offered a statement from supporter Rep. Pete Sessions.
    
“Conservatives are rallying around the one candidate with the executive experience and proven leadership our country needs,” said Sessions, who added that the former New York City mayor had the added value of strong on the war, “gets fiscal discipline and can beat the Democratic nominee.”